Draco Malfoy and The New Boy in Town
by Emily Huxley
Summary: Set in 1989, Draco is living with his godfather and guardian, Severus Snape. When one day, he rocks up with another kid in tow, Draco is faced with boiling jealousy and raging issues. Can they learn to become brothers? / First fic. No Slash. No Warnings apply. / Obviously inspired by the ton of HP/SS fics on here.
1. Chapter 1 - Arrival

The front door unlocked with a click. Draco rushed from the couch to the hallway to welcome his guardian home. The door opened and much to his surprise, there was more than one person standing on the porch. "Who's he?!" Draco asked. The smile on his face quickly changed into a frown. "He," said Snape, "is Harry. He will live with us from now on." The tone of his voice left no room for debate. "Harry, this is Draco, my godson and ward." Harry lifted his eyes curiously from his shoes to the blond boy in the hallway. "H-hello D-Draco," he greeted in a small voice. "Hi," Draco replied, lifting his chin and folding his arms in front of his chest. His eyes scanned Harry from top to bottom. Harry seemed small, definitely a year or two younger than himself. His face was pale and slim, the joints of his elbows protruded from the rest of his arms. Overall, he seemed like a skinny imp. Pathetic, really, easy prey.

Draco has lived with his godfather for about a month now. After his parents were convicted for more than one case of magical misconduct, including violence against muggles as well as severe neglect of parental duties, custody for the boy was transferred to his godfather, Severus Snape. The boy had recently turned nine and enjoyed the undivided attention he had received up until now. Spending time in his new home made him overcome the loss of his parents quickly, much to the surprise of his caretaker.

"Draco, mind your attitude," Snape reprimanded. "Here, take Harry's bag and put it in your room, then come back down again so we can talk about these new arrangements."

„What, why? I'm not a house el-," the boy started to complain, but stopped when he caught Severus' intimidating stare.

"Now, Draco. Do as you're told!"

Draco snatched the bag reluctantly, and trod upstairs into his room. Snape sighed, his eyes followed his charge up the stairs before addressing Harry. "Come on in then!" He ushered Harry in the house. "Welcome to your new home!"

"Thank you, sir," Harry replied.

"I will prepare some tea. You take off your shoes. Do not touch anything and no wandering around, I'll be back in a minute. The kitchen is over there," Snape said, pointed to the end of the short hallway, then left for the other room.

Harry nodded, took off his shoes and glanced around. This new place seemed alright. Cozy almost. The dark walls gave the hall a warm feeling. There was no decoration on the walls apart from a framed piece of paper that looked much like a certificate. Degree of "Master of Potions", awarded to Severus Snape, May 1984, he read.

To his left he saw what he thought would be the sitting room. Harry looked and took a step inside, but not too far. He did not want to start off on the wrong page with his new guardian. For all he knew, that man was intimidating, with his deep voice and dark, piercing eyes. The dark all-black attire contrasting the pale skin did not help ease that impression into anything more delightful.

The sitting room was filled with books. Books on all shelves, books on the sitting table, books in the window sill. A black couch and two head chairs filled the room. Heavy curtains half covered the windows on the left, facing the porch. A small fire place decorated the corner of the room. On the wall to his right was another door, closed. Harry could only image what was in there. Probably more books, he thought and smiled to himself.

Stomping sounds announced the return of another, particular inhabitant of that house: Draco. The blond boy smirked as he marched down the stairs like the little prince he thought he was. He stopped at the last stair. "So, you want to live here now, too, do you?" Draco sneered. Harry looked up into his eyes without saying anything. "What, can't you talk without old Snape around protecting you, or what?!" Draco stepped closer towards Harry in an attempt to intimidate the new boy. "You better watch your tongue and check whether _old Snape_ is within ear shot, before talking so cowardly," uttered a deep voice, "and stop teasing Harry." Draco turned his head, blushed slightly in apologized in a mumble. Snape grunted to signify his displeasure. "Come on in to the kitchen. Tea's almost done."

Harry quickly followed the man into the kitchen.

"Take a seat," said Snape and turned to handle the kettle of hot water. There were five seats around a table. Harry headed for the chair closest to him and sat down. Draco shuffled into the kitchen and barked „Oi, that's my place!"

Harry startled and jumped off the chair. Snape intervened.

"Harry, sit back up. Draco," he pierced the boy with his eyes "find another chair. There's more than enough room for the three of us." Draco glared at Harry, while he walked around the table to sit as far away from the intruder as possible.

"Good. That wasn't too hard now, was it?" Snape asked snidely. He touched the top of the table with the tip of his wand. Tea cups appeared.

"I hope you like chamomile, Harry," he said as he filled three cups. Harry's eyes grew wide. He still needed to get the hang of magic surrounding him.

"Now, as I mentioned, we need to talk about this new situation," he said as he distributed the cups to each of his wards and pulled the last one to himself. Harry took the cup and put both hands around it. Draco scowled and stared at the new boy.

"Draco, as much as you may dislike the change of arrangement here, you will have no other option than to comply and I would furthermore recommend you lose that attitude you present right now. There will be no squabbling among the two of you. If you, however, do find yourselves in a row of misunderstandings, I want you to come to me and ask for help," he said as he addressed both boys. His gaze, however, rested upon Draco when he added "As your guardian, it is my task to provide a home for you. The both of you are in my care and I will treat you equally. In return, I demand obedience from you and respect not only towards myself but also towards each other. Is that understood?"

"Yes, sir," Harry said. His voice a little raspy for he hasn't spoken much so far. Draco scowled.

"Yes, sir," he added hesitantly through slightly gritted teeth.

"Good," Snape said in a calm yet determined tone.

"Now, another thing. After we had our tea, I will show you around the house, Harry. Draco, you are welcome to join us if you want." He sipped on his tea.

"There are a few rules in his house that need be obeyed. Fail to abide by them and you will suffer the consequences." Draco's eyes fell to his tea. Harry listened attentively, still clasping his cup.

"I expect honesty and do not tolerate being lied to. You will not scream, run around the house or cause havoc in any other way. You are to be friendly and respectful towards each other as well as any guest in this house. You will attend meals on time and clean up after yourselves. Furthermore, your room is to be kept tidy, that includes making your bed in the morning and putting away clothes in the evening."

Draco mentally rolled his eyes. Harry drank some tea and listened on.

"You will attend school here in this neighbourhood. I expect you to do nothing less than your best. I will not tolerate slacking off."

"Lastly, when I assign chores, I expect you follow through with them." Snape paused. "I believe that covers it for the beginning. Any questions?"

Harry was almost startled by the abrupt ending of the speech. That was it? Be on time for meals? Go to school and do chores? His thoughts were interrupted by Draco's wailing voice.

"Chores? Since when do…" Draco rambled.

"I know this concept is foreign to you, Draco, but in order to function symbiotically, I will assign minor tasks for you to fulfill from time to time. It will do you good and teach responsibility," Snape explained.

"If you've finished, let's start with the house tour."

Harry gulped down the last drop of tea, smiled and nodded excitedly. Hidden from his godfather's sight Draco clenched his fists under the table. He did not like this. At. All.

* * *

Leaving the kitchen, Snape and Harry followed to the sitting room. Draco, who remained sitting for a while, jumped off the chair, his feet pounding the floor. Severus noticed the noise, cast a quick glance over his shoulder, but decided to ignore it for now.

"The books in this room," he whirled around while pointing towards the dark wooden shelves behind him,"are available for your education as well as entertainment. There are also a few board games among the shelves. I expect you to handle all items with care." He looked at Harry, whose eyes scanned the bookshelves from the windows, followed down the wall towards a closed door. "Although the sitting arrangements might be inviting, they are not to be used as bouncy castles. The fireplace is connected to the floo, so make sure to always keep it clean of clutter. I will not have any guests, or myself, fall over scattered books or toys." Harry looked around as he took in all the information.

"Do you have any questions so far?"

Harry scooped up all courage he had in himself and asked, "Wh-what's behind that door?" Snape's eyes glided from Harry to the door he was pointing at.

"That would be my private study. Connected to it, you would find my potions laboratory." Looking back at the boy, "For your own safety as well as my peace of mind, you are not to set foot or even as much as glance inside that room without my supervision, except if you are in dire need of my person, say, in cases of emergency. My laboratory contains countless ingredients, potions, powders and plants, that, handled by the uneducated, effortlessly result in painful injuries if not death." With that said, he turned on the spot. The door remained closed throughout his statement. Draco stood in the door frame, arms folded, and watched. Snape passed him on his way upstairs, closely followed by his new charge.

At the top of the stairs, they came to a sudden halt. Snape turned around to face the boys and pointed to the far end of the hall.

"Down the hall is my private bedroom. Assuming you want to live peacefully in this house, I advise you to stay away from there and keep your feet on this side of the threshold. Emergencies are naturally excepted from this rule."

Harry looked back at the man and nodded in acknowledgement. Draco stood on the last step of the stairs, leaning against the wall.

"Here," his right hand guiding the view to the door right of him, "you find the bathroom, and finally," he opened the door to his left, closest to where they stood "the boys' room."

Harry's eyes were wide open now. Before him he saw a big chamber with two large windows on the far wall. Two beds on opposite sides of the room, a dresser made of dark wood, a bookshelf and two desks framed the area. He entered.

Squeezing himself between Snape's long legs and the door frame, Draco trudged into the room and slightly bounced against Harry's shoulder to give him a little push. He planted himself on the bed with the dark green bedding and a gray blanket on top. His bed.

Harry certainly noticed the push but did not act on it. His bag lay rumpled leaning against the dresser at the right wall of the room. The bed in the far right corner right next to the windows had red sheets on, covered by a brown blanket. He liked it.

"Now, I think this is all there is. Draco, please help Harry unpack and settle in?" Severus addressed his charge who had followed them like a shadow.

"Oh, yes of course, I would be delighted to," Draco replied in an overly-polite manner. Harry was too mesmerized by his new room to catch the change in Draco's tone. Severus squinted at Draco. "Well then," he paused. "Dinner will be in about an hour. I suggest you stow away your belongings and make yourselves acquainted." He left and headed downstairs again.

Harry walked around and explored the room. He was happy to finally own his own bed, and such a lovely one on top of that! Draco watched him from the other side of the room, then rushed into the corridor, lurked down the staircase and listened for footsteps. Snape seemed to be out of earshot now. He went back into the room and closed the door. Harry turned around.

"Just to make things clear," Draco approached Harry, "this is my room. Mine. Do you understand? I was here first, uncle Severus is my godfather and you are nothing more than an intruder! I make the rules." Intimidation marked Harry's face and tears of frustration shot into his eyes. He was used to be bullied by his cousin before but he hated how some things did not seem to have changed in his new home. He frowned, bit his lower lip and concentrated on suppressing tears.

"What, are you going to cry now? Go cry and run for help! He won't hear you now, you know, he's in his study and does not want to be disturbed. You heard him yourself!" Draco circled around Harry.

Both boys turned to face the door when they heard steps shuffling upstairs. Severus passed the boys' room and headed for his own to gather the latest edition of Potions Weekly. On his way back, rolled-up journal in one hand, he noticed that it was suspiciously quiet. The door to the boys' room stood ajar and he tipped it slightly to peek inside.

"Everything alright in here?" he asked. Harry straightened himself, glanced at Draco as he did not dare complain or tell on the other boy so early in his stay. Draco was probably right, he wasn't more than an intruder in this house, was he? His new guardian seemed alright and all, but how was he to compete against his godson? No chance of winning in there.

"Yes, uncle Severus, I was just about to help Harry unpack," Draco acted all friendly.

"Alright then," Snape said and left.

"Let's see what you've brought with you then," said Draco. He went for the bag, that he himself had carried upstairs like a sodding elf.

"No, don't open that!" Harry cried. He was well aware of the atrocious state of the few pieces of clothings he had in that bag and could only imagine the fun Draco would make of him when he saw. But it was too late, the boy had opened the zipper and dragged a piece out of the bag.

"What. Is. That," Draco wrinkled his nose and he held an oversized, sun-bleached and partly blood-stained t-shirt in front of him.

"Is that your clothing? What color is that? And that smell! Ugh! Are you poor or something? This is hilarious, wait until I tell everybody, they wouldn't believe I have to share a room with a rat like you!" he teased with an evil laugh.

"It's not mine!" Harry responded desperately. It was true, it wasn't his, not really. It was hand-me-downs from his elephant of a cousin but, unfortunately, it was all he had. He leapt towards Draco, trying to snatch the bag off him but was unsuccessful. Draco turned in defense, pushing Harry away his left hand, while holding the bag up high, away from him, with his right. He scavenged for more evidence for his claim that Harry was indeed some humanized rat.

Harry had dropped to his knees.

"Leave it, please!" He was embarrassed for some reason. He looked down on himself. The t-shirt he wore that day was the finest he had ever had. It was mottled gray with red seams at the neck and sleeves. His trousers were new, too, all black and almost dandy, he thought. He got them at the short-term foster home where he stayed the week before Severus had picked him up.

"Please, leave it," Harry cried. Draco went on, he did not think of stopping anytime soon, this was too much fun. He took the bag and unlocked the zipper fully, turned it upside down and made the content fly all over the place. It was a mess. The blond boy almost fell into a fit of laughter, while Harry jumped on top of the pile of clothes, trying to cover it all up.

Downstairs, Severus noticed the thumping noises and waited a little longer. Let them play and have fun, he thought. When he heard the evil laughter he knew from his dear godson, he laid down his reading and marched upstairs. Upon his arrival he was confronted with the situation: Draco laughing, while Harry clutched on all fours on a … what was that? Was that the boy's clothes? He did not hesitate to intervene.

"What in the name of Merlin happened here?"

Silence. No more laughter, only glares and sobs. His eyes wandered from Harry to Draco.

"Explain," he demanded in a stern voice.

"I.. I was helping him un-unpack," answered Draco, his eyes wandering back and forth from his angry godfather back to his feet and then to the pile Harry was now kneeling on.

"But.. look, it's just rags! He doesn't even have clo-," he stopped.

"And how is that a laughing matter to you?"

Silence. Draco's head fell and he stared at his feet. Something started boiling up in himself. He wouldn't cry, he was not a baby anymore stupid old mean Snape couldn't scare him so easily.

"Harry," Snape walked over to him and squatted down, "is that really all you have?"

"I told you already!" Draco barked.

Snape turned his head around to his charge, reprimanding with a glare alone. Draco closed his mouth and frowned.

"Harry," he tried again, "talk to me." Sobbing was the only response he got. He reached for the boy's shoulder. Harry flinched and backed away.

"What about the clothes you are wearing today," he asked in a calm voice while,"they look fine to me."

Harry looked up, but before he could speak, Draco affronted:"He probably stole them from some other boy he lived with befo-".

"Enough!" Snape snapped, turned around and marched to Draco.

"It's true though, isn't it?" teased Draco while taking a step back. Not fast enough though. Severus grabbed the boy by the shoulder of his shirt, jerked him around and navigated him into a corner of the room.

"Stand here and do not make a sound. Am I understood?"

"No, that's not fair!"

"I said, I am understood?" He bend down so that his eyes would meet the miscreant's, their noses almost touching. He did not wait for or even require to hear an answer. Draco took a last glare at his godfather and turned around, sulking.

"No fair," he whispered angrily to himself.

Snape returned to Harry, who kept staring at the scene and was afraid of what was coming next.

"Please, sir," he whispered, "he's right. I got this from the home where I lived when you picked me up. You see, all I ever had were these… these rags… it's embarrassing." Tears rolled down his cheeks.

Snape felt reminded of his own childhood, being the outcast for so many years and judged by his peers based on his misfitting appearance. He knelt down to be level with Harry and said, "It's okay. Don't be embarrassed, we will arrange new clothing for you. And until then," he stopped and pondered the possibilities.

After a short while, Harry stopped sobbing and Snape resumed his thoughts "I assume, you have no emotional ties to this hump of rags, Harry?"

Harry looked up, wiped away the last tears, then shook his head.

"Well, pick them up and follow me," Snape demanded and made for the door.

"You," he addressed Draco, who had turned around to see what was going on, "put your nose back into the corner. I will deal with you later." The boy's shoulders twitched slightly at the harsh sound of the man's voice. He exhaled an angry huff and turned around.

Harry didn't understand at first, and watched his guardian leave. He shook his head to bring himself back to the present moment, scrambled to pick up the pile of clothes and stumbled after the man. With the rags partly blocking his view, he went downstairs, placing one foot after the other onto, tilting his head slightly to see the steps. Right foot, left foot, watch, next step. Right foot,... . Phew! He made it without stumbling.

Draco heard the front door open and took the opportunity to escape his embarrassing situation in the corner. He didn't dare follow, but stayed upstairs and sneaked towards the window at the far end of the corridor, facing the front of the house.

Downstairs, Snape had conjured a bucket, filled it with a few pieces of wood. Incendio.

"Harry, outside!" he called towards the open front door. Harry stopped dead in his tracks and dropped the pile in astonishment. One last piece of clothing was still clutched to his hands. His mouth formed a perfect O-shape and his eyes were wide open. It dawned on him what Snape had planned.

"What do you think, should we just rid yourself of those horrible reminders of your previous.. caretakers?" Snape suggested and cringed internally as he pronounced the last word.

"D-Do you.. I mean.. Really? Really, sir?" Harry said excitedly.

"Do I look like I'm joking?"

"No, sir, sorry!" He quickly picked up the pile of clothes and hopped down the two steps connecting the porch with the front lawn.

"Go on, throw it in there!" Snape encouraged his young charge.

Harry hesitated, but only shortly, before he dropped a piece of clothing he particularly hated: one of Dudley's old boxers. Whoosh! A flame ignited that horrible rag and it was gone. This felt so good! Liberating, really!

Next came a bundle of socks, but they did not burn that well, as would be expected, considering they were more hole than fabric anyhow. Snape watched without comment but he noticed the change in Harry's behavior: while starting off hesitant, he practically threw one piece after another, ridding himself of his past and unfortunate memories under the thumb of his relations. Severus had previously reminisced about Harry's lack of confidence and how to boost it, but this right here seemed to be an unprecedented step into the right direction.

When almost all pieces were burned, Harry paused. His eyes went from the fire to his guardian, then asked, "Please, sir, can Draco come down, too?"

This request caught him by surprise. Draco! He almost forgot about his godson. The devil's kid! He contemplated shortly.

"While I must admit, I do appreciate the amount of compassion you present, I believe, Draco has yet some pondering to do. Now, let's finish up here, shall we?"

When the last piece was nothing but ashes, Severus extinguished the fire and guided the boy back inside, to the sitting room.

"Go entertain yourself, I'll be back shortly." He climbed upstairs and heard a door creak, accompanied by the sound of small feet shuffling close by. The man entered the boys' room and looked to his left, where Draco had obviously just placed himself back into the corner, pretending he had not moved an inch during the last ten minutes.

"Finally, I thought you'd never come back!" he moaned dramatically as he turned around and left the corner.

"Stop right there. I advise you to hold your tongue and listen," said Snape. He was still angry and could not begin to understand the way his godson behaved. Draco reconsidered his last move and concluded he tread on thin ice. He blushed and fell silent.

"Come here," Snape ordered, pointing in front of him, and, albeit reluctantly, Draco approached his godfather, his head hanging. "I am utterly displeased by your atrocious behavior this afternoon. Not only are you being an insufferable brat today, but you also fail to show any sign of respect towards myself or Harry." He inhaled deeply and kept focusing the top of the blond head, then resumed. "He is as much my ward now as you are. Do you understand that? You may live under the impression you are the king of this house, but let me remind you: you are not."

Draco blushed but remained silent. He kept staring at the buttons of Severus' cloak. There was a beautifully engraved letter S on there, decorated by some sort of flowers. That was odd, he thought and quickly snapped out when he felt a cool finger lifting his chin, forcing him to look up. "Look at me, Draco," Snape said, "Do you have anything to say for yourself, any reasoning for the way you acted?" Draco felt chastised like a little kid. "I'm sorry, sir," with his voice shaking only slightly. "I believe, I am not the right recipient of that statement, but I know of a boy to whom you should address this plead. Do you agree?" Draco glared, trying hard to keep the eye contact, alternating his focus on the man's left and right eye. He bit his tongue and finally nodded. "A verbal response, please," Snape required. "Yes, sir," Draco uttered. "One more thing, Draco. Harry has no more clothes apart from the ones he wears right now. I expect you to be a generous host and share some of your clothings with him." Snape headed over to the dresser, opened a drawer and collected two days worth of clothing for the boy. "Take this with you and hand it over to Harry as a sign of truce." Draco wanted to interfere but remained silent. "Yes, sir."

Downstairs, Draco entered the sitting room, while Snape waited at the door and watched with his armed folded in front of him. "Harry?" he called. "I'm sorry." Harry accepted the apology and the boys shook hands. Snape intervened. "That was barely an honest apology. Elaborate, what are you sorry for, Draco?" "It's fine, really," Harry interrupted, but Snape raised his hand, indicating Harry to be silent, while piercing Draco with his eyes. "I.. I'm sorry for making fun of your rag… clothes earlier." "Apology accepted," Harry replied, although he had to admit he liked Draco being this timid all of a sudden. "I want you to have these clothes, so that you can look like a normal boy." Draco explained.

Snape sighed, rolled his eyes and turned around. "Now, boys, I think dinner's about ready. Go wash your hands and come to the kitchen please, it's getting late." He pinched the bridge of his nose. This was going to be more exhausting than he had ever assumed.

* * *

AN: Merged Ch. 1 and 2 (deleted #2) to make this a longer read than it was before. (1 Oct 2018)


	2. Chapter 2 - An Outing

The next morning, after breakfast, Severus decided to take the boys for a walk and introduce Harry to the town that he would now also live in. Harry was excited. He loved being outside.

Leaving the house, Draco ran ahead to the street, turned and looked back. Severus closed the door, Harry stood by his side and watched. They came walking towards the blond boy.

"So where are you taking us? Can we go buy some toys? And ice cream! Can we?" Draco asked, or rather, demanded.

"Not today, we don't," Snape replied, "First, we will show Harry the neighborhood so he will never get lost here." he glanced around, then faced the boys.

"Which brings me to the first point." He stood in front of the boys and looked at Harry.

"You may not have noticed, but we just crossed the boundary of where this house's wards are set. I do not wish for you," he changed his focus from Harry to Draco, "or you," and back to Harry, "to ever cross this line without my expressed permission. Always tell me, where you are going. Is that understood?"

"Of course, sir." Harry said and nodded quickly.

Draco smirked. "Does that mean we do not have to go to school anymore then? Sweet!"

"Don't be ridiculous! School is of course excepted from this rule. You are to leave on time and get back right after. I will know if you wander off," Snape elaborated. "Now let's go." He jerked his head minimally to his side, ordering the boys to follow him. The street was framed by a row of almost identical houses, one after another side by side. They all had dark grey and reddish brown brick, black slate roofs and little chimneys, some of which ejected smoke. They were barely distinguishable but for their house numbers. Some neighbors planted bushes on their short lawn, others had a swing or a chair placed in front. Many windows were darkened by thick curtains, others exposed decorative plants or light drapes. Harry could imagine getting lost here. He grasped his guardian's hand.

Snape twitched but as he realised the boy's cold tight grip, he gave it a soft squeeze and looked down to his charge without giving any comment. Harry kept looking at the houses. In front of the second to last house in one of the rows leaned an elderly lady, picking up today's newspaper. When she noticed the three gentleman, as she liked to call them, walking by, she straightened up and greeted.

"Good morning, Mister Snape."

"Good morning, Mrs. Whittle. How do you do?"

"Oh, same old, same old, nothing ever happens in an old lady's life, believe me," she chatted, then looked at the blond boy to Snape's right, who snickered "Good morning, young Draco," she looked at the boy. "d'morning," he mumbled.

"And who is this handsome chap?" she asked while looking around for Harry. Harry startled, let go of Snape's hand and tried to hide behind Severus, peeking with only one eye from behind the man's back.

"This is Harry," he introduced, as he grabbed behind himself and gently pushed Harry from his hiding space back into view.

"He is my ward and living with us now." Draco scraped some sand on the sidewalk, idly looking around.

"Say hello to Mrs Whittle, Harry."

"Hello ma'am," Harry said as he blinked and looked at the old woman. She was a bit chubby, like many old ladies he had seen in his old neighborhood, had a round face with wrinkled skin and tousled grey hair. She wore a brown cardigan and a long grey skirt. The slippers on her feet confirmed she had only left her house to get the paper. Harry thought she seemed friendly, but his eyes quickly twitched for somewhere else to look. He noticed the house number. 25. He tried to memorize, in case he ever got lost, he would come here for help.

"No need to be shy, lad," she smiled.

"He is," Snape said while looking down to his charge, "We will work on that, but for now we have to get going. I am taking the boys to the town. Harry needs to get acquainted with his new surrounding and have a good look around here."

"I see, I see. Well, you have fun. Enjoy the town, boys," she returned, "and don't trouble Mr. Snape so much!" The boys blushed a little, Severus' mouth formed into a smirk.

"Good day, ma'am," he said with a small nod of his head and they went on. Mrs. Whittle watched them leave, turned and walked back inside.

Severus offered his hand to Harry, who gratefully accepted. They walked. Draco ran ahead down the street.

"Draco!" Snape called. The boy stopped and turned around. "Stay in sight!" He rolled his eyes and waited.

Harry took in the houses and read their numbers. 21... 19... 17... 15… . They reached the end of the road, where Draco waited for them. Snape stopped walking and looked at Harry.

"Down there," he pointed down the left road, "is the post office and a little bakery. A little down that road is a playground that I am sure Draco can show you one of the next days. The other way," he pointed into the opposite direction, "leads to the town center. That's where we are headed." With that said, Draco set off to run ahead again.

"Wait for us by the fountain, Draco!", Snape called after him.

Trees and bushes decorated the side of the road they followed. Some cars drove by. In a short distance, Harry spotted the top of a church and a bunch of smaller houses with more or less crooked roofs and signs attached, spelling out the different shops and stores of the town. Opposite the shops he saw the town hall. It was an old building with dark weathered sandstone bricks, much larger than all other buildings in that place. Four columns decorated its fassade. There was a fountain in the middle of the market square with a statue of a knight on a horse. He had no idea who that was supposed to be. People strolled around, their hands tightly clutched to shopping bags or children, or both. Draco stood, hands in his pockets and with one foot on top of the bench near the fountain. About time, he thought as he looked at Severus and then Harry.

"Why did you drag us here anyway?" Draco asked in an annoyed voice.

"Mind your tone, Draco," Snape voiced, "And I did not drag you here. I remember you clearly running with us. We have a few things to take care of as you well know. First on the list is a new attire for Harry."

Harry read the sign of the shop. Tailor Taylor. He giggled. Snape noticed, looked at the boy, then at the shop sign.

"It's a funny coincidence, don't you agree," said Severus.

"Yeah," Harry nodded and continued giggling. A bell rang, as they entered the shop. Draco dragged his feet after them and looked around. He was bored and leaned against the front window.

Mr. Taylor appeared from the back of the shop.

"Oh, hello there," he greeted.

"Hello Mr. Taylor," Snape started. "We have had a little situation here, and need an entire set of clothing for the boy. Shirts, trousers, you name it."

"Yes, yes sir," the tailor replied, nodded and changed his view from Snape to Harry. "Come along then, come along." He ordered Harry to step on a small stool and started taking his measurements.

"Do you have any color in mind, Mr. Snape?" Mr Taylor asked and turned his head in Severus' direction.

Snape glanced over to Harry who seemed a bit absent-minded. "What color do you like Harry?"

He needed a second to notice being called. "Sir?"

"Mr. Taylor needs to know the colors you'd prefer."

"Uhm.. I liked the grey shirt. The one I wore yesterday, with the red hem?" He looked down at his plain white shirt. One of Draco's. He definitely wanted to have something different to wear soon.

"And something black maybe? Would that be alright, sir?" He hopped off the stool.

"Absolutely." Snape addressed the tailor, who watched the scene. "You heard him. Make that two black, three grey and two red shirts then. Maybe a combination of colors, but nothing too absurd. And one white, for more formal occasions. As for the trousers, two black and a pair of jeans should suffice."

"All jotted down," Taylor said, still writing the last order. He looked up, "It shall be delivered at the beginning of next week. Is there anything more you need?"

Severus added a few more items to the list to finish the order, thanked the man and paid in advance. Draco stood by the door and looked outside.

"Can we go now?" he asked. Snape decided to ignore the annoyed tone in Draco's voice. Mr. Taylor had already left or the back of the store.

"Yes, we are done here. Come along, Harry, Draco." Snape advanced, held open the door and lead the boys outside.

"Can we go to Andalou's?" Draco asked in a suddenly excited tone, jumping a little.

"No, but maybe later." Draco's joyful face vanished and his shoulders fell a little. Andalou's was the toy store, that, much to every parents' displeasure, also had an ice cream machine near the checkout. He loved that place.

They walked down the street and passed a pub, a barber, a bakery, a butcher, two grocers and a small record store. Finally, they entered one of the smaller shops. The Book Nook, Harry read in a rush before following Severus into the store.

"Books?!" Draco barked, "Don't you have more than any person can read in a lifetime already?!" He did not enjoy reading much. Harry was startled by the way Draco talked to Severus and was anxious that the man's patience would draw to a close shortly. He could name many occasions in which such behaviour would have earned him more than a stern reprimand. His frightened eyes glided from Draco to Severus.

"That," Snape replied, as he turned on his heel to face his recalcitrant charge, "is none of your concern. You may look around while I search for some books," he addressed both boys now, "but keep your hands to yourselves!"

Snape walked to the back of the shop and checked for latest publications. Meanwhile, Draco grew ever angrier. Harry read the labels of the shelves and approached the one that read Children's.

"Don't tell me you read," Draco teased, "I can hardly imagine anything more boring than reading dusty old books." Harry loved books. They have always been his safe place. It was so easy to get lost in a good story and imagining being somebody else just by the means of reading was utterly fascinating. He could read for hours and hours without taking a break.

"Why not? What's wrong with reading?" he simply asked.

"Reading is what they make you do at school. Isn't that reason enough to hate it?" Draco stated like there was no alternative to his explanation of the matter. He walked away, gliding his fingers over the spines to make a little noise with every bump on a new book.

Harry frowned and turned to scan the bookshelf. He noticed one particularly pretty spine. It was black with golden letters and read Timothy and Linus. He tiptoed, stretched his right arm and pulled the book from the shelf. Rocking backwards, he caught himself with the book in hand. He sat down on the floor and observed the book. The cover showed a picture of two boys, both rather shaggy looking, in the woods. He opened the book and flipped through the first few pages.

"Did I not tell you to keep your hands to yourselves?" Snape chided. Harry had not noticed him appear and twitched, shutting the book with a bang. He quickly got up and tried to put the book back in the shelf, but instead dropped it.

"Wipe that smirk off your face," Severus scolded Draco, who stood nearby and found pleasure in the situation.

Snape bend and picked up the book. "Do you enjoy reading, Harry?" he asked.

"Y-yes, sir, I do."

"It seems that this book is not part of our home library. Yet." Snape said. He added it to the stack of books he carried. "Go ahead and wait outside. I have to pay these," he said and went for the checkout. Harry smiled and moved to the door.

Both boys shuffled outside. Harry felt uncomfortable whenever he was alone with Draco.

"How long are you going to keep up this act?" Draco asked snidely. Harry didn't understand the question.

"You heard me!" Draco shot, and looked down into Harry's eyes. Oh, why did he have to be so small? Harry thought to himself.

"What's your problem?" he asked.

"My Problem?" Draco said pompously, "You are my problem. You act like you're the little perfect angel boy. All Yes, sir and No, sir and Of course, sir, please and thank you! How can you possibly stand yourself?" He paused a paced a little.

"But face it, uncle Severus only took you in out of pity. I don't even want to know where he found you." He sneered and scanned Harry's face, then resumed, "But fact is, that you're just some random boy while I," he strutted and straightened his back,"am his godson. Real family, you know?"

Harry felt anger brew inside of him. His ears turned red and his eyebrows narrowed into a frown. A godson is just a word, it's not even real family. It just means, they know each other much longer. Nothing more, he thought.

"I am his ward as much…", he started to argue but stopped when Snape exited the store.

"Come here, boys," he called. "Now that we're done, I want to show you the town a bit more."

"Done? Already? You didn't get me anything yet! Everything you bought is for Harry and yourself!" Draco complained. Harry saw the inequality, but didn't make a supporting statement. Serves him right!

"The purpose of our excursion was not to get you anything, Draco, but to organize everything for Harry to settle in." Snape explained. "If I may remind you, the two of us went through exactly this procedure five weeks ago. Was that not to your satisfaction?"

Draco fell silent and looked down on himself, examining his attire. He had to admit the truth in his guardian's statement. The clothes he wore in that very moment came exactly from the store they had visited before. He blushed.

"That's what I thought." He placed a hand on Draco's shoulder and shoved him lightly to cross the street. With Harry in tow and Draco dragging his feet to his left, they turned into a small alley, away from main square. Throughout their walk, Snape gave a short lecture about the town's history before they reached the wide open space in front of the cathedral Harry had spotted earlier.

"This is the oldest standing building of the town and one of the oldest in all of England," he pointed out. "In many villages, chapels and churches were among the first buildings erected. They were often also the only remains after a town fire, as their elaborate stone walls do not burn as quickly; especially in comparison to the wooden houses of the old days."

Both boys were looking up the tall church tower, fascinated. The three of them walked inside. The thick walls kept out much of the warmth. Draco and Harry shivered upon their entry, and separated into different directions as they explored the building, heads tilted far back to take in the full height of the ceiling. Snape put a coin into a small can and took a candle. He lit it the muggle way and placed it in one of the empty holders. After a short while of silence, he called the boys. The church bells chimed twelve.

"Let us return home, boys." They complied without arguing, still in awe of the magnificent building.


	3. Chapter 3 - First Sunday

_Thank you for your reviews and sorry for the long-ish wait. Hope you enjoy. R &R please._ –Em. 21/02/18

* * *

The weekend passed quickly. Compared to the strenuous Saturdays and Sundays Harry had had at the Dursley's, filled with an impossible-to-finish list of tasks, slaving in the garden and the house, hoping for a piece of cake to drop for him to eat to get at least a bit of food, living here was a vacation. As he would soon come to learn, Sundays were days of quiescence at Snape's home.

As every day, Harry woke early, changed his pyjamas for trousers, pulled a sweatshirt over his tousled head and made his way downstairs. He tried to not make any noise, which was nearly impossible, considering the wooden floors all over the house squeaking softly. It would be a while before anyone else would be up and he certainly wanted to avoid being the reason for their early wakening. He glanced inside the kitchen and wondered whether he should get started with breakfast. Everything was still and the soft creaking of the door felt like thunder. Inspecting the room in silence he noticed he did not know where any of the food was stored, nor the plates or cups. There was nothing he could do, so he turned around and headed for the living room to continue with his book.

He was only on the fourth page when he heard a door open followed by striding footsteps, then another door closing. Then rustling water. Then shower sounds. Then the doors again. When soon after Snape emerged at the hallway, Harry closed the book and turned around, not leaving the couch though. His guardian stood in his usual all-black attire, his hair still damp.

"Why are you up so early," asked Severus while drying his hair on the go with a flick of his wand.

"Uhm.. I.. I always wake up early, sir," he stammered without wanting to elaborate.

"Well, good morning then."

"Good morning," Harry smiled and slid off the couch.

Snape advanced into the kitchen, poured water into the kettle and turned on the stove. Harry had followed the man into the kitchen and watched. Severus was going through the cabinets, collecting all the ingredients he needed to prepare sunday morning's feast, placing them on the counter in front of him. He then took three plates off one of the shelves and turned around. "Here, set the table please," said Snape as he handed the plates to Harry, who complied and concentrated on not letting anything drop. Next he was handed bowls and cutlery and cups for tea. The kettle was howling with hot water.

Without asking, Severus poured Harry a cup. The boy looked up and smiled at him. Never before was he served tea. Or food. Or anything for that matter. It was always himself who had to serve others.

"Thank you, sir."

"No need to thank me, Harry," replied Snape, putting the kettle down on the table.

"Just so you know, I like to have my morning tea in silence while reading _The Daily Prophet_. I'd like to keep it that way–quiet." With that Severus sat down and picked up the weekend's paper. Harry took the steaming cup of tea, led it to his lips and blew its surface to cool more quickly. It was still too hot to sip so he put it back on the table. He looked around, watched the steam, then the heavy clouds outside, but did not make a sound.

"Can I go get my book then, please?"

"Of course you may," answered Snape without moving his paper an inch. Harry shuffled to the living room and returned shortly after. They sat there for almost half an hour, reading in a state of silence that was only interrupted by the crinkling of newspaper, the occasional sound of a turned page or a slurp of hot tea followed by a gulp. Harry enjoyed being allowed to read for fun, encouraged even. On a Sunday morning! With hot tea and hopefully breakfast soon. His stomach rumbled at that thought.

Snape lowered and folded his newspaper. "I believe you agree it's time to eat, don't you think?" Harry blushed and put his book aside. Swinging his wand, Severus put together the ingredients he had prepared and after mere minutes, the bowls on the table filled with steaming porridge.

"Top it off with whatever ingredients you like," Snape said when a big plate with cut fruit and berries appeared on the table. Harry was overwhelmed by the range of food he could choose from, then took some banana slices, raspberries and a handful of grapes.

Draco awoke in an empty room. He could hear the clattering noises of the breakfast society downstairs. _They are having breakfast without me? Uncle Severus always waits for me!_ He hurried and changed into his day clothes and stomped downstairs into the kitchen, where his godfather seemed to have a jolly good time with Harry.

"Good morning Draco," Snape said. Draco mumbled his _g'd mornings_ and marched around Severus to his place at the other side of the table and, with a thud, fell into his chair. He now sat opposite Harry, who did not mind him at all. Looking down on the table, he complained.

"Porridge? Again?! Why can't we have pancakes or cake on Sundays, like normal people do?"

"Porridge provides you with all important nutrients that your body needs to grow and it fills you up for the morning, so that's what you're having." Severus said.

"And it's disgusting!" Draco added determinedly and pushed his bowl from him, "I won't eat it!"

"Too bad for you," said Severus, who shoved the bowl back in front of Draco,"but you will have to eat breakfast. And if you sit here until noon, then so be it. Now stop arguing." Harry looked up and watched the scene. It still amazed him how rude Draco acted and how he dared to talk to their– _their!_ –guardian. Draco huffed and resigned to the meal, scooping some fruit into his bowl.

When all bowls were empty and bellies filled, Severus rose.

"Harry, you go ahead in the living room, Draco, you clear the table, then join us. We need to talk about something." Harry hopped off the chair, took his book with him and went out. Draco's mouth opened to complain, but before he could utter any word, Snape intervened and raised his index finger at Draco.

"Harry helped me set the table, so you will help clear it. Easy as that. Stop complaining," and left the room.

Draco reluctantly complied. He wondered at what moment in time he was degraded to a sodding house elf. He collected the plates, stacked and carried them to the counter next to the sink. From about a finger width of height he let the plates drop. Not enough force to make them crack but more than enough to make some noise. He repeated the same trick with the bowls. Cutlery was always noisy, he did not have to strain himself to make them rattle, just push them a bit too close to the sink to make them fall inside with a shattering sound.

"Are you quite done there?" asked Snape, standing in the door frame. Draco twitched and jumped around. He hadn't noticed he was being watched. He glanced at his godfather, blushed, then made for the living room. Yes, he was done, thanks for asking. Snape shook his head slightly when Draco had passed and followed after him into the living room. Draco furrowed as he sat down next to Harry, but with the maximal distance possible.

Their guardian placed himself in front of them.

"Now, as you well know, tomorrow will be Monday, which means that all three of us have to attend to our duties. For you that means school of course."

There it was, the dreaded topic. Harry disliked school. Not learning though, he loved that. But to him school was nothing than a never-ending race from bullies, lonely lunch breaks and belittling teachers. He didn't see how any of that would change here. He tried to detach himself from his worrying vortex of thoughts and listen to what Snape had to say.

"Although this should be self explanatory, I will repeat my expectations towards you. You will be respectful to your teachers and friendly with your classmates. You will fulfill your assignments on time and ask for help when needed. Occasionally, I will check in on your work." He paused. His charges were looking at him, and seemed both to be paying attention.

"Tardiness is a form of disrespect, so I advise you to always be on time. School is within walking distance. Draco, I expect you to show Harry the way tomorrow morning. School starts at eight so you will have to leave here no later than twenty to eight."

"As it so happens, you will be in the same class," Snape explained to the equally furrowing boys, "and I do not want to hear any complaints about the two of you fighting. Lawfully, you are as good as brothers now,"

"Pah!" bursted Draco.

"-so behave. like. it." Snape nearly finished. "Any questions?"

Harry shook his head, Draco did not show any sign of response, waited shortly then asked "Can we go now?"

" _May_ we please go _?_ " Snape corrected, "And no, you may not." Draco folded his arm and threw himself back into the cushions of the couch.

"As lunch is not for another three hours, you two go upstairs and get started on your week's homework. Silently. Sunday is a day for quiescence and re-charging, and I will not have the two of you interfere with that. I myself will also work in the lab for the time being, so you better do remind the rules and stick your noses only where they belong. Understood?" The boys nodded their heads.

"Draco, you show Harry what you learnt in class during this past week. And Harry, I want you to try and solve the same homework that was assigned to be completed by tomorrow. Try and see which of the assignments you can solve. Your teacher will see how far you've come in your old school and can better judge where you need to focus more." Harry nodded in agreement but sighed lightly. There goes his free morning.

"But I don't have any books yet."

"I am fully aware of that. For today, Draco will share with you, won't you, Draco?"

He nodded and understood fair well that this was a demand, not a question, so he did not bother replying. In his defense, he did not have all that many options. He felt he stepped on very thin ice lately and no matter what he did, he'd be the one out of line who gets punished. His temper always got the better of him.

"As I thought. Once you are finished, you may spend the day as you like. Now, go on then!"

The boys slid off the couch and ran into their room. Once there, Draco dragged his bag from the far corner beneath his desk and pulled out two books. Each had a piece of paper attached on the cover page which noted the weekend's assignment. He handed Harry the Spelling book while keeping the maths book on his desk.

Each boy made for his own desk and started working. Harry read the assignment. Spelling came easy to him. He had already read so many books that he often just knew how to spell a word. There were many doodles in the book and wondered if Draco was the one who had added them. He finished his assignment in no time at all, then watched out the window, daydreaming for a little while.

Draco was still fully occupied with his sums. He had only just finished the first few problems and there were twenty in this whole assignment.

"Can we change books now, Draco?"

The boy jumped, being thrown out of his concentrated state. Harry came over and held the Spelling book for Draco to take back.

"I'm finished with this one and I want to see the other assignments so that I can get my free time," he said and glanced at the paper on the desk. "By the way, your second answer is wrong," Harry told him.

"Oh yeah, how do you know?"

"For starters, I learnt how to add up numbers," he said and opened his fist finger-wise, starting with the thumb. "Let me just copy the task and then I can help you, if you want."

Draco banged the book shut and forcefully pushed it into Harry's chest. "Here, you do it then if you're so smart!"

He threw himself onto his bed and huffed. Harry didn't mind too much, he just really urgently wanted to finish the problems and show that it was indeed not hard to add one number to another. He opened the book, turned to the indicated page, copied down the assignment and started on with it. It took him just over half a minute per problem and he was all done. He pushed back his chair and put the second sheet on top of the first one. What was he going to do now?

Draco got up from his bed and proceeded to Harry's desk.

"That's impossible! How did you solve them so quickly?" he asked. "Let me see!" and he snatched the sheet from the desk.

"No! Give it back!" Harry yelled, jumped off his chair, which nearly tipped over, and ran after Draco, who held the paper in front of him. Draco hopped onto his bed to be even further from Harry's reach. Harry resigned the fight, dropped onto his chair and scowled.

"Fine, copy for all I care." Draco did not have to be told twice and set to work.

"All done," he said, quite proud of himself, when he placed the last number on his paper and handed Harry his paper back, a bit wrinkled here and there as a result of Draco's tight grip before. There was nothing to be gained from also copying the other homework, he had to write his lines for spelling either way. Harry resumed being anxious about the upcoming day and wondered if he should ask Draco a thing or two about the school, the teachers and the other kids in his class, but he thought twice about it and dropped the idea. He would get to know all of them on his own in a days time.

* * *

In the afternoon, heavy rain hit the windows, turning the street into a river. Harry slouched on the couch and took to reading again, while Draco stayed upstairs and drew while listening to some music on his walkman. Since all seemed to be at peace, Snape retreated to his study to go over some new research papers. A group of potion researchers had developed a new method to significantly increase the yield of a full range of medi-potions when rare ingredients were involved in the brewing process. Snape re-read the paper a second and third time and took copious and comprehensive notes. He himself was working on a similar problem at his facility and would put the proposed procedure to a test as soon as possible.

Later, Severus wanted to have a look at their work and make sure both boys would be all set for the upcoming week. Harry went upstairs and told Draco to come down, too. He ignored him though. Harry took the stack of paper with both their work and left the room. Back in the kitchen, he handed his two sheets to Snape, placed Draco's on the counter and waited for comments.

"Good work, Harry,"–the boy beamed proudly–"but you got a few of them wrong." He marked the incorrect problems with pencil.

"Try again, then copy your results on a clean sheet. This one is in a horrid state for reasons I don't care to explore." Harry smiled, nodded and sat down at the kitchen table.

Snape checked Harry's spelling and found nothing wrong with it, except for the scrawl it was written in. He put it aside and glanced over Draco's work sheet next. The boy seemed to have worked on it with good effort, more than usual as far as he could judge.

"Wait a minute," Severus muttered, more to himself than anyone in particular.

"Harry, would you show me your sums again, please?"

He was just starting to correct his wrong answers.

"Why? Is something wrong?" _Did he just answer with a question? That was a rude thing to do,_ Harry thought to himself, astonished.

"Just hand it over." Harry capped his pen and handed over the paper. Snape took it on his way to the stairs.

"Draco, come down here," he called.

Upon his entering, Harry glanced at Draco nervously looking around. Snape checked both assignments again, comparing the sheet in his left and right hand, line by line.

"What I have here are both your worksheets from this morning. And I noticed something," he paused. Draco tried to mask his guilty face but his eyes fell back to the floor whenever he tried to look at his godfather. "Something very peculiar," he said, looking from the papers to the boys and back, "Number one through eleven are all correct–in both cases. Number twelve is incorrect, again, in both your calculations. Then you've got them all right again until the last two lines," he said, alternating his view to Harry and Draco, "This is an utterly suspicious pattern, don't you agree?" Harry looked over to Draco, who rubbed his neck.

Severus conjured two sheets of paper and copied a few of the same problems down on both of them. The boys watched and threw questioning glances at each other.

"Sit down," he demanded, and Draco obediently hurried over to his chair.

"I do not want either of you lying to me, so to sort this out, you will do the task all over again. We will see who of you really came up with the solutions."

"What? No! It took forever to do these!" Draco said.

"Then it should be easy for you to solve them a second time, should it not?" he said curtly.

With a soft bang of his hand against the table he put the new papers down in front of them.

"Now start!"

He folded his arms and watched the boys. Harry picked up his pen and solved the five lines Snape had written on his paper. Draco hesitated but followed suit. He concentrated and frowned slightly. Sums did not come easy to him. He tried to glance at Harry's paper, but Severus was closely watching them both, so copying was not an option this time. A few moments after Harry was done, Draco lay down his pen, too, and, elbow on the table, rested his head in his hand.

Severus did not need to check the results to know who had copied from whom. He addressed the miscreant in question.

"Two out of five this time. Although in your previous calculations you had four of them right."

"Let me do them again!" Draco tried to save himself.

"No, I think I've seen enough. You will sit here and do your sums now. On your own this time." He put Draco's old sheet down on the table, but all solutions to the problems were wiped out now. Draco sighed.

"As for you," he turned to face Harry, "While I do appreciate your willingness to help, I do not want you to let Draco copy any of your homework. He has to learn it on his own. Are we clear?"

"Yes, sir, I won't," Harry replied and nodded quickly. He did not want Draco to get into more trouble, despite the fact that he was the perfect definition of a nag, so he did not mention that he did not exactly _let_ Draco copy what he'd written. Not initially though.

"Go on and finish your corrections."

Snape turned around and started with dinner preparations. He was in a twisted state of heart. Disappointed for his own godson lied to him but at the same time he was astonished by the newly discovered talent of his new charge. Knowing Harry's history but despite any evidence for his assumptions, he had thought that such neglect and abuse would also affect the boy's performance at school, leaving behind a child that would need much attention and help. Now, however, the reality seemed to be the opposite. He hoped that maybe the two boys would come to reason and see how they complement each other to set an end to their quirreling in near future.

While still pondering, he threw some vegetables in a pan, which gave a hissing sound as soon as they made contact with the oil. From time to time the glanced over to the boys. Harry was going over his corrected numbers. Draco was obviously concentrating on his work now. Occasionally he whispered numbers to himself, counting fingers, but ten fingers just weren't enough to keep count.

"I'm all done, may I please be dismissed now?" asked Harry. Snape turned from the pan and looked over to the table. The boy was way too polite, even for his liking.

"Yes, you may. Go wash your hands and come back after, dinner is almost ready." Harry took his stuff off the table and left.

"Draco, are you getting along?"

"uh…huh." Draco hummed, hunched over his paper as he jotted down his result for the last problem, his tongue poking out to one side, his cheeks blushed lightly from exhaustion. "Done," he pronounced and let the pen drop on the table.

"Good. You heard what I just said. Dinner's as good as done. Go get ready." And with that, Draco left, too. Snape took a quick glance at the boy's sums. There were still a few wrong answers, especially towards the end, but overall it would be a pass.


	4. Chapter 4 - Friends

_**AN:** I admit, I did not know where I wanted to go with the story (I wrote for the sake of writing and only sporadically at that), but now I have an idea. I also edited the previous chapters a tad (but not too much). **Enjoy this new chapter!** / I want to point out that I am not a native speaker, i.e. never properly learnt English punctuation, so commas might appear where they don't belong. Feel free to point out mistakes. Keep it civil. / Snape is not a Hogwarts professor in this story. I will probably elaborate at a later point in this story. / _ This chapter still needs a **title**. / **Harry-centric** chapter/POV. I might keep the story this way. / **R &R please.** –Em. (Monday, 19/03/2018)

* * *

Harry was nervous about starting school. In his old school he felt insignificant, tiny and practically invisible. Everybody avoided him, for fear of his bully cousin. His biggest hope was that this would change tomorrow. Despite all worries spinning in his head, Harry fell asleep quickly that night.

As usual, he woke up early. Draco was still asleep, a soft snore coming from his side of the room. Harry used his advance to take a shower, brush his teeth without having to fight for the bathroom. Back in his room he put on decent clothes for school. Right when Harry slipped into his socks, Draco's alarm went off and a ruffled blond head appeared among the sheets.

"Good morning, Draco," said Harry. Draco replied with nothing more than a sleepy yawn and Harry left the room. Downstairs, Severus had already prepared breakfast and sipped on a steaming cup of Darjeeling tea.

"Good morning, Harry," he greeted the boy.

"Good morning," he replied.

"Is Draco up yet?"

"Yes, he just got up, I think," said Harry.

"Good. Go ahead and eat your breakfast."

Harry seated himself and scooped up a few spoonfuls of oatmeal. After a short while, Draco also made it downstairs. After they finished their morning oats, Snape was instructing the boys to be friendly and look out for each other.

"Now go. And behave," said Severus as the boys left the house.

Draco was leading the way to school but did not talk to Harry except for the occasional "this way" whenever they took a turn from the main road. As Severus had mentioned, school was fairly close to their house and they reached it after a short walk. Harry was following Draco to their classroom.

"Good morning," Draco said in a flat voice to the teacher.

"Good morning, Draco," he replied, "and you must be Harry." Harry blushed a bit and nodded.

Standing in front of the class, everyone was staring at him.

"Listen children, we have a new student in our class," he announced to the class, "This is Harry. He just moved to our town a few days ago. I want you to welcome him and be friendly! Harry, please take the seat over there," his teacher said and pointed at the empty desk towards the right half of the room.

Class started and as much as Harry tried to pay attention, he couldn't help and look around a little to try and remember all faces later. In the back row, a girl was whispering something into her neighbor's ear, who then started giggling, quickly covering her mouth with both hands. In front of them, a boy was resting his head against the wall, yawning widely. One girl was poking her pencil into the stack of paper in front of her. The boy behind her was furrowing his brows, apparently already a bit lost with the lesson.

Taking this as a cue, Harry concentrated on his teacher and the ongoing lesson for a while, then his eyes continued wandering. Draco sat in the middle row and was scribbling on a piece of paper. Behind him sat a girl with an auburn braid hanging over her shoulder. She was writing on her worksheet but when she noticed Harry's stare, she smiled. Harry blushed and quickly turned his eyes back to the front to follow the lesson.

The classes ended as quickly as they started and soon all children left the room to head out to their break. For the first time in his life, Harry had a package lunch with food for him–and him alone–to savour. Entering the schoolyard, he looked around for Draco, not sure if he wanted to find or to avoid him. After all, he was the only boy he knew in this place, but at the same time, he wasn't a very friendly one. He did not have to find an answer for his question, because he could not spot the blond head at all. Placing himself on a bench he took a bite of his sandwich. Before long, he was surrounded by a few of his classmates, all curiously staring at him.

"Uhm.. 'ello," he said, mid-chewing.

"Hey, Harry was it?" asked the girl with the braid, Harry nodded. "I'm Polly, Polly Jenkins, and these are my friends," she introduced the other children. "We wanted to get to know you and have a few questions, you see, because you're new here and all?"

Right after she was finished, the questions started like a bombardement. They asked him for siblings, his favourite color, his birthday, where he was from, if he had a pet, where he lived now, his favourite ice cream and candy. Harry's head kept moving, focusing on a different classmate, it almost made him dizzy. Unused to being approached at all, Harry swallowed the bit of bread he was just eating, and started to answer one question after the other.

"I used to live with my aunt and uncle but now I live not far from here, in Crescent Road. I live with Draco, actually," he said.

"Oh.. so is he your brother or something? You don't look anything alike," asked Polly.

"No!" Harry shot out, "no, he's not."

"Then why do you live with _him_?" Her intonation implied a determined aversion.

That was a good question. Where would he start to explain? Should he try to explain at all?

"We have the same guardian, you see," he finally said, "that's why we both live in the same house."

"Wow, so you don't live with your parents at all? That's so cool!" someone said.

Harry wanted to object, _cool_ wasn't exactly how he would describe not living with your parents due to the circumstance of, well, their death.

"Yeah, it's alright," he lied and took another bite from his sandwich.

"Wait a minute, isn't… isn't Draco living with this scary man, _Snake_ or something?" asked one girl to no one in particular, "I saw them once in the supermarket. That man was scary, I tell you! All skinny and tall and pale with a long black coat." A few of them nodded in agreement and cast a glance at Harry.

"I heard he's a vampire," said someone.

" _I_ heard, he's the boogeyman's brother!" added someone else.

"What?! No! That's ridiculous," said Harry and giggled at the thought of _Uncle Boogeyman_ coming by for tea, although he had to admit to himself that the _vampire-_ thought also crossed his mind when he first saw Snape.

"He's alright," he said, "He seems scary, but he's really not. He bought me all these clothes," he picked at his shirt,"and he gave me a big room," he chose not to mention that he shared it with Draco, "and books and..." he paused, looked around and figured that elaborating how Snape also gave him food on a regular basis was probably normal to all of them so he finished, "...all that." Silence. There were no other questions, so they changed the topic.

"Do you want to play?" Polly asked.

Apparently, their questions were answered to everybody's satisfaction. Harry took another bite of the sandwich, stowed away the leftover and ran off with the others for a round of catch. Throughout the whole break, he did not once see Draco. The schoolyard wasn't large, so he wondered where he had gone. Ringing bells announced the end of the break and all children ran back to their classrooms. Draco arrived at his seat right when the last bell rang. Harry was almost starting to worry and was happy to see the other boy but quickly averted his eyes. He concentrated on the teacher and did not have much trouble following the lesson. It was his favourite: maths.

The assigned problems were easy for him to solve and he finished them as one of the firsts in class. When he was all done, he glanced around. Many of his classmates were still scribbling, some were whispering and helping each other. He watched Draco for a while.

His teacher stopped to look at his finished work.

"That's very good, Harry," he commented. Harry beamed and his ears blushed lightly. In his old school, even the teachers were ignoring him for the most part.

"Since you're done, you should already get started on the homework assignments," his teacher advised and pointed them out.

After the last lesson had ended, he packed his books into his backpack, swung it on his back and walked outside. A group of classmates waved him goodbye and left in the opposite direction of where he would have to go. Harry smiled to himself. He had made friends! Not just _new_ friends, but his _first_ friends.

"What are you smiling about?" asked a familiar voice. Draco had waited for Harry near the schoolgate; not because he wanted to, but because Severus had told him to that morning.

"Nothing," said Harry.

"Let's go then."

They walked in silence. Harry tried to chat a little. "How do you like our teacher? He seems very nice to me."

Draco shrugged and said "He's alright." _Well, thanks for the chat_ , thought Harry.

"Polly was talking to me. I think she's nice. Do you know anything about her?"

Draco did not reply.

"Who are _your_ friends?" asked Harry, "I mean, you've been here for a while, you must have friends, right?"

Draco stopped dead in his tracks and turned to face Harry but before he could say anything, Harry concluded, "You don't have any friends here, do you?" I haven't seen you during the break and you never talked to anybody the entire day."

Draco huffed.

"What's it to you, anyway?" he asked and continued walking with a determined pace.

"Nothing, just curious." Harry ran a few steps to catch up again.

He didn't know whether he should feel sorry for Draco. After all, he was quite nasty, but Harry knew the pain of loneliness just too well.

Once back home, Draco dropped his backpack right where he entered the house, tossed his shoes near the entry and went to the kitchen to get some snacks. Harry went upstairs. It was only the afternoon and Severus had told them he would not be back home until shortly before dinner. Harry was already finished with his homework, so he took some time to relax and do nothing for a while. He thought about Polly and the other classmates who came to talk to him. They seemed to have quite some reservations when he mentioned Draco's name. What had happened between them? Why were they so averted? He would try and find out soon.

Steps on the front porch announced Snape's arrival back home. Draco quickly bolted from the living room to the hallway, grabbed his backpack off the floor and darted upstairs. Severus entered the house and walked upstairs to change his clothes. He glanced inside the boys' room. Draco was rummaging in his backpack, Harry was laying on his bed, reading.

"Good evening boys," he greeted, "Glad to see the two of you are still intact. Did you have a good day?"

"Yessir" they replied simultaneously as if practised.

"That's good to hear. Dinner's in half an hour. I expect you to come down and wash up before that."

Harry had barely finished his sandwich the whole day, but being used to go days with only a minimum amount of food, he only just then noticed some hunger pangs. Dinner was an unusually social affair.

"So tell me, how did you like your new school, Harry? Did you get along fine?" Severus wanted to know.

"Oh, it was great! Our teacher is nice and our classmates were talking to me during recess.. There was a girl, Polly, and she was asking me a few questions and then we played catch and had a lot of fun, and–"

"Try and breathe, Harry," Snape remarked with a smile, "But it's great to hear your first day went well," he said, "How about you, Draco?"

"What about me?"

"I was asking you how your day was. Did you make any friends?"

Draco poked his dinner with his fork and shrugged.

* * *

Unlike Draco, Harry was happy to go to school in the morning. During breaks, he met up with Polly to chit chat or play games with the others. On Fridays, lessons ended earlier than the other days. Draco was nowhere to be seen after school so Harry decided to go home on his own. Polly came running to him.

"Hey, wait for me!" she called, "Wanna walk home together?"

"Sure." Harry liked Polly and did not mind her presence one bit.

"Let's go here," she said, pulled him by the arm and turned into a narrow road.

"Where are we going?"

"The park of course. It's Friday, so let's do something fun this afternoon!"

"I'm supposed to get back home right after school."

"Oh come on, it's Friday, what's so important to do at home?"

Harry shrugged and agreed to join her. Polly grinned and started off. They entered the park, where many people were walking their dogs and a group of young mothers were pushing strollers.

"First one to reach the swingset wins!" she explained and sprinted off. Harry followed her quickly but despite being a good sprinter, he could not catch up. Polly already pushed herself up high when he dropped his backpack right next to hers and hopped onto the other swing.

"Let's see who can fly the farthest." Polly seemed to really enjoy competing with him.

"Fly? You cannot fly!" Harry said.

"Of course I can! Watch me," she said and swung higher and higher and finally jumped off the swing, flew a bit higher into the air and landed with a thud in the sand.

"Now you! Come on!" she called to Harry.

"What, no, I'll break my legs!" Harry had never jumped off, let alone sat on, a swing before.

"Come on, don't be silly! I'm fine, see?" she said, showing him her right foot then the left and turned around to prove she's still a fully functioning human.

"How did you do it? I'll just drop!"

"No, you won't. Just swing high and at the highest point, you let go of the swing and push yourself a little ahead and that's how you fly," she explained.

Harry tried and pushed his legs back and forth, pushing his swing just a little bit higher. He had a really tight grip on the swing chains. He felt his stomach lift and fall at every point of return.

"Come on!" Polly cheered him on.

He let go of the swing and fell for a short while, then landed in the sand, stumbled, and almost planted his face in the sand if he had not caught himself on his hands. He looked up into Polly's face. The girl shrieked with laughter.

"Are you okay?" she laughed, "That looked hilarious. You definitely need more practise!"

Harry got up and wiped the sand from his trousers and hands.

"I guess so…" he said.

"Sorry for laughing, but you looked like a sack of potatoes," she said.

"Stop laughing!" Harry said, but her giggling was contagious and he had to join in.

"Sorry, I'm sorry, I can't help it, I'm stopping now," said Polly with a last hiccup. "Let's try again!"

"Nah, I'm good for now," said Harry, "You go, but I've had enough of _flying_ for now," and plopped down next to their backpacks.

Polly got back on the swing and started advancing up in the air again.

"Don't just sit there, Harry, tell me something about yourself," she demanded.

"What do you want to know?" he asked.

"I don't know…." she said, swinging back and forth, think of questions. Harry's head was following her movement. Back and forth. Back and forth. And back.

"How do you like this town? How is living with Mr. Snape?" she finally asked, "I've seen him the other day. He seems so bitter and grim, I think I would be so afraid of him all the time!"

"I know, he doesn't talk a lot and likes it when we don't bother him too much, but he isn't mean or anything, that's just what he looks like," Harry replied. It wasn't entirely true but he would certainly not admit that he was a bit scared sometimes, too.

"But why don't you live with your family anymore?"

"Well, I told you how I was an orphan, right?"

"Yeah, I remember."

"So, after my parents died, I.. I was brought to my aunt and uncle's. I was just a baby then but they didn't like me much." _Despise him_ would have been the correct expression but Harry did not want to sound too dramatic.

"They did not take good care of me, I was living in a cupboard and they gave me chores over chores but never fed me properly."

"One day, there were social workers coming by the house. They were sent over to check on Dudley, my cousin, because he was always causing trouble in school, but when they came they kind of… _found_ me in my _room_ and…" he paused and looked away.

"And…? What happened?" asked Polly.

"And… well.. There was a long discussion and right when they left, my uncle got furious, he said I should not have been seen. I tried to run away but he got hold of me and pushed me into the wall. He told me he wished I had never come to live with them and how I should have died together with my parents." He made a short pause.

Polly gasped at that. "What? That's horrible, how can he say that?"

"I don't know, but he did."

"Hm-hmm," Polly hummed in agreement, for lack of fitting words.

"Apparently, the social workers heard the rumble and came back in the house. They took me away, obviously. They said I wasn't safe there and they would transfer me to another family and that I would never have to see my uncle or my aunt ever again."

"Oh.. but they are your family! Why did they not like you?"

"I… I don't know." Harry was gazing at the patch in front of him. He had been plucking grass without noticing before.

"I don't miss them though. They were mean and they hurt me and I am happy I don't have to go back there." Harry's chest sank as he sighed. "Sorry, this is probably not exactly the story you wanted to hear." His head dropped a bit.

"No no, it's fine, really," she replied. Polly had stopped rocking her legs and let gravity stop her motion. Her swing came to a halt. With her shoes she drew circles in the sand beneath her.

"I'm glad you told be, you know… Because… Because I also have a story for you," she said. Harry raised his head to look at her.

"Because I… I am adopted. Don't get me wrong, my parents are wonderful and all, but it's… I was just wondering how you felt…Being different than the other kids at school, you know."

"Oh… Yeah… I know." Polly got off the swing and sat down next to him.

"So, do you have any more siblings then?" Harry asked her.

"Yes, I have a sister and a brother.. Well, my sister's also adopted, but she's my sister nonetheless. She's five and can be a real pain sometimes but I love her most times. And then there's Jamie. He's just turned fifteen and he's our parents' biological son. He's super cool and he knows it," she laughed.

"That sounds great, I'm happy for you!" replied Harry. "How long have you lived here?"

"I can't remember not living here. I was adopted when I was a tad over one year old, so I don't remember my _real_ parents at all. And also… it's weird right? I mean, calling _them_ my _real_ parents… I don't even know them. My adoptive parents are much more real to me, so they would deserve this title much rather than the ones who didn't want me…"

"I'm sorry," Harry offered.

"No it's fine, I'm sorry for unloading this all on you. I have one more question though. What's the deal with Draco? I know he's not your brother, but why is _he_ living with Snape?"

"I.. I don't know really. All I know is that Snape had always been his godfather and that he was taken from his parents. I don't know why, though. He doesn't talk to me, he's always bossing me around or ignoring me altogether. I think he kind of hates me, but I don't know why, I didn't do anything to him."

"Yeah, he's always so angry."

"I think he might be lonely. I mean… you've seen him, right? You've known him longer than I have… Did he ever talk to anybody? I never see him talk, he's always silent when we are at school."

"We tried to talk to him on his first days here, just like we did to you, but he told us to bugger off and called us names. He said he wouldn't talk to _mugs_ like us. What's that even supposed to mean?"

" _Mugs_?!" Harry snorted.

"Yeah, mugs. That's an odd thing to call somebody, isn't it?" she asked with a grin. "I'm not even sure it was really an insult, but he said it in a really mean way. Of course, nobody bothered talking to him after that."

"Oh.. that's.. Understandable," said Harry, "and you're definitely not a mug!"

"Oh why, thank you!"

"You're welcome," he said with a cheeky grin and they giggled.

"It's getting late, I think we should go," said Polly. They picked up their schoolbags and left the park.

"I really enjoyed talking to you, Harry. Do you think we could hang out sometime?"

"Sure, we are friends, aren't we? Friends hang out with each other and they tell each other things," he said. Not that he had much experience with friends, but that's what he always imagined having friends was like.

"Cool! Well, I have to go one street further. See you on Monday?" Polly said.

"Yeah, see you on Monday," said Harry and quickly ran home. He hoped Snape didn't mind him spending the afternoon with his new friend. As Polly said, it was Friday after all, so nothing urgent awaits at home anyway.


	5. Chapter 5 - Explorations

Re BlueMoon007: Working on it, but I'm not there yet :}

 _Here's another chapter. It's a bit shorter (2.5k) than the last few. Sorry for the long wait. Didn't know if I wanted to even go on writing this. Enjoy though. (: {please point out (spelling/grammar) mistakes if you find some!} - Em. (_ _27/09/2018_ _)_

* * *

 **Chapter 5  
**

Snape was everything but in a fine mood. His experiments at work did not yield the expected results, forcing him to repeat the same procedure for several times, all to no avail. In the end he aborted the experiment altogether and jotted down his observations for later reference. Severus was not used to progressing slowly in the lab and found it highly frustrating and erosive to his already meagre patience. With a final _Evanesco_ , he called it a day and flooed home. The boys should be back by now, too. He stepped out of the floo in his private study. The downstairs was completely void and it was suspiciously silent in the house. Maybe they were still on their way after all, so he decided to have some tea by himself before the boys's racket would fill the house again. Nothing better than the soothing warmth of a cup of Earl Grey.

Sipping on his tea, Severus skimmed through the Daily Prophet. Nothing peculiar caught his attention, the usual chit chat: a new store opening in Diagon Alley, results of the latest UK Quidditch League matches, upcoming concerts and movies, some family-friendly festivities in a nearby town. Especially the latter never caught his eyes but now, still adjusting to his new situation and role as guardian, he considered reading this section: some entertainment would certainly be a welcome change for the boys.

A Wizarding Summer Carnival was announced for the end of June and was fairly close to their home. Socialising with other wizard children would probably benefit both Harry and Draco. He closed the newspaper and went upstairs. Only now he noticed he was not alone at all - years of neglect showed and his spying skills, including severe precautions in one's own home, had obviously fully left him. The door stood ajar and he gave it a soft knock before entering.

"Good Afternoon you t- Where's Harry?" Severus asked.

"I don't know," Draco said in his most innocent voice. "He said, he didn't want to come home just yet."

Snape furrowed his brow. "Did he say why?"

"No," he said and shook his head.

"Where did he go?"

Draco shrugged when they heard two soft knocks on the entrance door.

Severus walked downstairs and opened the door. Draco followed him out of the room and leaned on the banister to listen in. Getting Harry into trouble was exactly what he had planned and now the play was finally on.

"There you are," Snape said in a determined tone, "May I ask why you are late?"

"I… I-", Harry started but did not quite manage to explain himself. To Severus' relief, he boy looked unharmed and well.

"Get inside," he ordered, opened the door wide and stepped aside for Harry to enter. Out of habit, Harry undid his shoes and let go of his backpack while Snape continued to chide him.

"As far as I am informed you did not transfer schools in the past two days. Draco has long since arrived. He told me you did not _want_ to come back here just yet. Is that correct?" Snape said slowly.

"I didn't say that I didn't _want_ to come home," retorted Harry, now facing Severus. "I did not talk to Draco at all since school finished."

"Then where were you?" he asked, missing the last part of Harry's statement.

"I… I went to the park with... with a friend. I'm sorry but-," Harry tried to explain, shortly glimpsing up to an angry looking Snape but decided the floor was just as good to talk to.

"Did I or did I not tell you to come right home after school?" His baritone hummed in the hallway.

Harry looked up but didn't say anything. He did not expect Severus to worry much about him but now, confronted with the man, he also did not dare look him in the eye for longer than the fraction of a second. He nodded.

"Well, see that you will not repeat your unguided wanderings. Are we clear?"

Harry looked up. Was that it? "Yessir. I'm sorry," he replied.

"Now, get upstairs, Draco is already there, maybe the two of you find something to do" said Severus and Harry gave a smile, nodded and went upstairs. "And Draco," he increased his voice to ensure being heard upstairs,"you know my stance on eavesdropping, do you not?"

Draco pretended not to be there and held his breath. He was already spotted by Harry and shook his head as to signal him not to give him up. Harry obliged and went into their room.

"Would you come downstairs?"

Draco exhaled carefully not to make a sound but the wooden flooring gave a squeak at the slightest movement that gave him up.

"Now," said Snape into Draco's general direction and the boy understood it was his no-nonsense type of voice.

"What did _I_ do now?" he asked defensively while bumping down the steps.

"First of all, lose that tone! Second of all, you were eavesdropping after lying to my face."

"I did no-" Draco wanted to object.

"Do not interrupt me, especially by lying to me again!" said Severus, getting more agitated. "I will have to work for a while longer and I expect you to not start a fight with Harry. Busy yourselves. Talk to each other, get to know each other, play something. There is a chessboard, Gobstones and a stack of cards laying around in the cupboard. Get crea-"

"Do I have to? I don't want to!"

"That was not a question."

"What are you working on? Are you going to your lab? Can I co-"

"No, you cannot help or join or watch. Do stop pestering me with these questions, you know fair well that I cannot let you watch my experimental work," he scolded Draco, "Now, go upstairs and occupy yourself."

"And lose that pout," he added when Draco turned to go upstairs. Severus gave a sigh, watched the boy trodding upstairs. He heard the click of the door before heading down to his lab.

* * *

"Are you alright? What did Severus want?"

Draco cast a glare in his direction but did not answer his question. He threw himself onto his bed, dropping his head face-down into his pillow.

"Are you not talking to me? You cannot ignore me forever, you know. You will have to talk to me eventually," noted Harry.

Unfortunately, Draco had to agree. If only there was a way…

"What's wrong with you?"

"I'm bored. And I don't like you! Ever since you came here, I cannot do anything fun anymore! I can't fly on my broom, can't brew potions and I am always in trouble with Uncle Severus because he only has time for you or his stupid work anymore!"

Harry pondered this. He didn't have any means of evaluating the truthfulness of what Draco claimed.

"From what I've seen, you bring trouble about yourself, Draco, that's not my fault, you're just always cheeky towards Severus. No wonder, he's angry with you all the time!"

"Since when is he _Severus_ to you anyway?" asked Draco, "He's my uncle, not yours!"

"He told me to call him Severus. It's his name after all! And I didn't say he's my uncle! I already had one, and I don't ever want one of those again!"

"Whatever," said Draco, crossed his arms in front of him and turned away from Harry, who also turned to mind his own business.

Lying on his side, looking at the wall, Draco thought about what Harry had just said. The frustration of the past week was boiling inside him. His head ached and tears were shooting up his eyes. He was trying to hide his sobs, but his sniffling was detected.

"Draco, are you crying? I'm sorry," said Harry. He really was, although he didn't see what he had said that made Draco so upset. He had only told him the truth.

"Leave me alone!" muttered Draco.

"Why are you crying?"

"I'm.. I'm not! Go away!"

Harry opened his mouth to reply but closed it again without saying a word. He decided to leave Draco alone.

* * *

Harry scoured the private library in Snape's living room and came across a few titles he deemed interesting. They all were about magical phenomena, but since he was entirely new to the wizarding world, everything seemed incredibly interesting to him. He picked up one about _Magical Plants and Herbs_ that had beautiful drawings around the title and contents pages.

While he was still living with his relatives, his aunt often made him weed the garden. Despite the strenuous character of this chore, he was out and among the flowers so much that it left a positive impression on him. He flipped through the book and found illustrations, rather old looking ones, of the most wondrous plants he had ever seen. He could not read any of the writing for the letters were printed in some type of runes that he didn't know but left more room for imagination about their names and features.

Were these plants growing everywhere or only in magical gardens and forests? Harry could not say for sure but the plants in aunt Petunia's garden never looked out of the ordinary and certainly not like anything he had just discovered on these pages.

"Severus?" he called into the house and listened closely for a response. "Severus!" he tried again but to no avail. With nothing else to do inside, he went to explore the garden behind the house.

* * *

Draco calmed down. He wiped away the last tears, sat up on his bed and looked around for something to do. Severus told him to get to know Harry or play with him. Maybe he should give it a try: after all, up until now he never had anybody to play chess with, but he did play a fair share against himself or against one of the servants, when he was still living with his parents. Beating Harry would probably lighten him up a bit. But before he could pick up the chess board, Draco spotted Harry wandering in the garden and decided to join him.

"Oi, Harry! What are you doing?" called Draco from the kitchen door as he entered the backyard.

Harry turned around and frowned shortly. "Just looking around. Why? What do you want?"

"Do you wanna play? You were right, we will have to get along.. I mean… who knows how long I'll be stuck with you…"

"What do you mean, how long you'll be _stuck_ with me? I'm not going anywhere!" Or was he? Harry frowned.

"Nevermind," said Draco and walked around a bit. He had an idea. "Come on, let's go play in the woods. It's not far, just behind the garden here," he said and went to the fence at the end of the backyard.

"I don't know, Draco. Can't we stay here?"

"There's nothing around here to explore. Or are you a chicken?"

"No, but-"

"Then come on! Uncle Severus is working in the lab, he won't even notice we're gone! Come ooon!" argued Draco and waved his arm to make Harry join him. Harry turned to the house and was indecisive whether to follow Draco or not.

He turned around. "Alright, but just for a short while, okay? If Severus sees we're gone..."

"Chicken!" remarked Draco as the squeezed through a loose board in the fence onto the other side.

"Am not!" said Harry and came running after him. And with that, the garden was void of any boy living under Snape's roof.

* * *

The sun was nearly setting when Draco and Harry returned back to their home. Scratches on their arms and legs told the story of their adventure in the woods, climbing trees, wandering through thorny bushes and jumping creeks and puddles. They sneaked through the same loose board of the fence that they had used to exit the garden but were careful now to not cause a racket. It dawned already and the light in Snape's study was turned on. Snape however did not seem to be in his study.

"Do you think he noticed we were gone?" asked Harry, absentmindedly fingering a fresh scrape on his elbow.

Draco only pulled a face, thinking, but didn't answer right away. "Dunno," he said, "We need to get inside though."

Harry looked around. Their window stood slightly open. It should suffice to get into their room and pretend they'd never left. He really didn't want Severus to catch them outside when they weren't supposed to wander around – not on the same day that he's already been told off for doing exactly that!

"Draco, we could try and climb in through our window. See?" He pointed to it. "We left it open and Severus will never know we're gone! Reckon we can get up there somehow?"

Draco thought about it and agreed to try. They kept a low profile and snuck to the house, avoiding to be spotted out in the open.

"If you'd give me a leg-up, I can crawl up the roof and into our room," Harry suggested.

"Yeah right, and I stay down here and get caught. No way, I'm not that stupid!"

"Hush! Keep it down, would you?!" whispered Harry, "Just help me and I'll try and get you up alright?"

"No way, you help me up!"

They build a little pile from random rubble and firewood to get a bit of an elevation, and so they started the journey of sneaking back into their room. Harry was still sure he should have been the one to climb up first, seeing as he's about half Draco's weight. Draco reached the roof though, got himself in order and slid the window open.

"Come on, get me up, too!" whispered Harry, hoping to be heard by Draco but not Severus.

Draco quickly got inside his room. Harry got impatient but didn't have any other option than to wait. Soon, a blanket was let down for him to climb up. He got the idea from a comic he read recently, in which robbers used knotted bed sheets to escape their prison cell. He figured it would also work the other way around. Harry got hold of it and dragged himself up, while Draco fastened and pulled it from the window.

"We made it!" said Draco, smiling, as Harry plopped onto the floor, panting from the exhaustion of climbing up the house. "Yeah, we did," Harry joined in.

"Congratulations," said a deep voice from the other side of the room.


	6. Chapter 6 - Guests in the House

_Yay, new chapter! It's 4.5 k words. Scroll to the end for a few questions regarding the further path of the story and my writing. But for now: Enjoy. - Em (21/12/2018) Thanks to Chrissysmiles for the lovely review. It kept me motivated so that I now finally post this chapter._

* * *

 **Chapter 6  
**

By the sound of Severus's voice, they jerked their heads around, their triumphant smiles immediately vanishing from their faces. Harry got up and straightened himself. "Glad you made it back home. And in one piece." Draco's tried to keep his gaze at Severus, but even with his eyes dropped, he felt Severus' glare cutting him. "Did you honestly believe your absence would go unnoticed? Do you have anything to say for yourselves?" asked Snape. Harry's eyes hopped nervously from Severus to Draco and back to the floor. Severus observed them closely, waiting for an answer while they were equally fidgetting in an absentminded manner. Neither of the boys came forward to answer. "So be it. It is late enough. I will not have you starving. Dinner will be on your tables. After that, you'll go straight to bed. We will have a talk in the morning." With his announcement finished, he left the boys to their nervousness and closed the door behind himself.

Relieved of the tension, Draco blew out some air. Harry walked over to his bed and sat down on the edge. "We're in so much trouble!" he said, visibly distressed. "We?! I think you are in much more trouble. You were the one falling through the window when he saw us. I was'n outside at all, for all Uncle Severus knows, I was helping you, nothing more!" Draco had no idea that Snape was informed about the boys' wandering precisely from the moment they stepped over the boundary of the backyard.

"I don't think you're right, he seemed angry with both of us, not just me," retorted Harry and after a short thoughtful break, he added, "What do you think he'll do to us?" But before he could get an answer, food and a cup of steaming tea appeared on each of their desks. "Boy, I was starving," said Draco more to himself than to Harry, went over to the table and started to munch on a bread roll. Harry reached for his plate but only nibbed on a piece of bread. It was still warm and he would normally have enjoyed it a lot but with the arising sorrow, he just could not stomach food right now. "How can you not be worried right now?!" he asked, as he watched Draco, who started to devour his food. He just shrugged and seemed completely oblivious to their delicate situation.

Harry put aside his plate, tried some of the tea but noticed that he could not stomach that either, so he got up to get ready for bed. He went to the bathroom, brushed his teeth, then tried to tame his hair a little. It was usually worse afterwards, so he stopped after a few strokes. Harry observed the scratches on his arm. He's had worse marks from much less enjoyable encounters. In the solitary refuge of a locked up bathroom, he was all to himself and started to ponder. What would happen tomorrow morning? It has only been one week since Severus had taken him in. He liked living here, life was relatively easy now, even with Draco nagging him all the time. For most of the time, Draco got out of his way anyway. For the rest, he learnt to stand his ground with the boy and thought he'd made huge improvements and didn't take all the banter anymore.

Back in their bedroom, Harry changed into his pyjamas and folded the clothes that Severus had bought him. It felt like a much longer time that he has lived here than it actually was. In the same short time, this one week or just this one day, really, he had gone against Snape's rules more than once and made the man oh-so angry. Thinking back at the face, how livid he was… Harry tried to dismiss this thought from his mind. Would Severus send him away for what he's done today? Harry felt he had never appreciated his new home as much as in this moment that he realised he might lose it again quite soon, that this might be his last night here. Maybe that was the reason why they had to wait for the morning; Severus would not kick Harry out of the house in the middle of the night, that would be irresponsible. Overthinking the possible outcome of the upcoming morning increased Harry's distraught. His thoughts were disrupted by Draco talking to him.

"Wasn't it fun though? I think the woods are awesome, don't you agree?" said Draco. He was laying on his bed, tummy filled with a delicious dinner and warmed from the tea. "Hm, I guess, yeah…" Harry had to agree, but shrugged to show his compulsion. "But I don't think we should have gone in the first place. I told you so many times, we should go back!"

"Oh stop it, you sound like my mother, always afraid of things to happen. What are you so afraid of?" Draco asked him in a quite assertive manner. "I'm just worried what Severus'll do to us, is all." said Harry but he meant he's afraid what Severus will do to him. "He's probably just gonna give us a smacking or something, but so what? It was fun. Don't worry about it!" "You think he will?" asked Harry with a hint of panic in his voice. "Probably. What else would he do?" Draco lied for the sake of scaring Harry some more and shrugged if off. In fact, he always got away easy with his godfather, he usually got a sound talking to or time in the corner whenever he acted out of place, but Severus had not once laid a hand on him. Harry frowned and climbed into his bed. He didn't answer, just said good night to Draco and turned around.

* * *

Severus knocked on the door and opened it. "Get up and be downstairs in ten minutes," he demanded and vanished again. It was still early and both Harry and Draco yawned. "What time is it?" mumbled Draco. "I don't know," said Harry and glanced over to the window. "Six maybe?" he said, judging by the faint blue sky of the morning. "We better get up, Draco. We're already in trouble, remember?" "Yeah yeah.. gimme 5 more minutes…" Harry got up and changed into his clothes. "Come on," he said and took his pillow. Instead of making his bed, he walked over to Draco and tossed it on his head. "Oi, what are you about?" complained Draco, who shot up at once. "Are you awake yet?" Harry grinned cheekily. "Now I am." Draco frowned, tossed his blanket aside and got up, too. He threw the pillow back into Harry's arm, forcefully to vent some steam.

Putting his pillow back on his bed, Harry sat down and waited for Draco to be ready to descend to their destiny. "You go first," said Draco as he pushed Harry slightly. "No, you go first, you've been living here for longer." That was merely a good argument and Draco didn't buy it. "Nevermind," said Harry, opened the door and they marched downstairs.

Severus was waiting for them in the living room, sitting in his armchair, legs crossed and hands folded in his lap. "Good morning," said Harry. "Good morning, uncle Severus," Draco said with the attempt of a smile on his face. He figured it couldn't harm to ease the situation. "Morning, boys." His baritone filled the room. He got up from his chair and pointed towards the couch. "Take a seat, this will take a little while." Harry gulped. He looked over to Draco. Hesitantly they made a move. Severus still looked angry.

"I am sure you realise that what you did yesterday was irresponsible of you. Let me recollect my view on this whole situation; A mere week ago, I took the two of you outside and explained the importance of staying within the limits of the house or to givenotice whenever you want to leave the premises, did I not?" They nodded, heads hanging. "A verbal response, please." "Yessir," they said in equally low tones. Snape grunted, then went on, "And yet, yesterday, the two of you decided, this rule did not apply to you anymore and spend a long while outside, exploring. Hours later, you came back to the house and, in order to make me believe you never left the house, you climbed up the house. Are you aware that even a fall from such a seemingly low height could injure you severely?" Severus locked his jaw and glared at his two miscreants who both looked down onto their laps. "Do you have anything to say for yourselves?" he asked and straightened in front of him. The image he gave was truly intimidating. "I gave you some time to think about my question yesterday, so I do expect answers today."

Harry briefly looked up to Severus, who was still enraged but considerably less so than the night before. He wanted to defend himself. It wasn't exactly his idea to leave. In fact, he tried to stop Draco from leaving the backyard. If it wasn't for Draco, they would not even be in this situation. He furrowed his brow in despair. "It's all his fault," he mumbled to himself. Draco heard him and glanced over and shot him an angry look. "Snitch!" he whispered.

"What was that?" asked their guardian. Harry's eyes shot up, shocked that he had uttered his thought in this moment. It always happened in the most inappropriate moments. Why did he make it so hard for himself? "It's Draco's fault, not mine," he said softly. "And why is that? Both of you went off the boundary."

Harry looked over to Draco, who kept staring at his hands, fidgeting with his fingers. "Well… we were.. I was in the garden. And… and Draco came down and asked me if we, well, if we want to play and how he'd like to show me the woods and-" Draco did not interfere. He stared Harry down though and caught a glance at Severus, but only for a blink of an eye.

"Is that so, Draco?" The boy looked up and started fidgeting again. He didn't reply but started gazing out the window and shrugged. "Draco?" Severus pressed on again. "Yes... But, you see, I… " he tried to think of an excuse. "You know I do not tolerate lying. The same goes for excuses, so be careful to finish the sentence," said Snape and Draco went silent. It was of no use. He slumped back into the couch, defeated in this interrogation and waited for the lecture to come.

"Let me get this straight; I told you, Draco, that I would be working in the laboratory. That I needed you to keep yourselves busy. You took this information and decided to vanish without any trace instead. So, in essence, you broke my trust in you. On top of that, you lured Harry into sneaking out with you and you thought I wouldn't notice!"

"That is not true!" Draco retorted. "You said to go play with Harry. I did that!" Snape pinched the bridge of his nose. "I meant inside! Was that not clear? I did not say take Harry and wander around the neighborhood without letting me know where you go. You need to learn to obey my rules, Draco, otherwise we will have a problem. Your lying will need to stop, too!"

Draco crossed his arms in front of his chest and huffed forcefully. He mulled in thoughts and Severus's words seemed to rotate in the boy's head.

"The same goes for you, Harry. I told you, mere hours before your escapade, not to go off and wander around without giving notice and yet, you hopped onto the next best opportunity and went with Draco." "I tried to stop him!" Harry said. Severus fleetingly raised his brows in surprise of Harry's courageous tone and his surprise was apparently shared by the boy himself. "But in the end, you left, too. Did you not?" Snape needn't wait for an answer. "It goes without saying that the two of you will be grounded for the weekend." He watched them drop their shoulders and sink even deeper into their seats. "This will give you enough time to think about wandering off like this another time, although I will only hope you know better than to repeat this stunt." He placed a short break into his speech to convey his message.

"As for your punishment...", he went into his study, followed by Draco and Harry's watchful eyes. They heard some rummaging, then the man came back into the room. He carried a few pieces of parchment and two quills. "...you will spend some time writing. This shall help the message sink in." He took his quill and wrote onto the first parchment. The scratching of quill on parchment seemed loud in comparison to the silence that filled the room. The boys both watched carefully as Severus wrote down the word. "Draco, come here," he ordered. The boy walked over, took the sheet that was handed to him and read the sentence that Severus had written. Severus put a spell on the quill and handed it over, too. He repeated the same and handed parchment and quill to Harry. Both boys read what was written on their respective sheet. "This will be the first part of your punishment. Once you've finished your lines, you will read up on a chapter that I have laid out for you. You will summarize its contents and report back to me in the evening." Harry nervously moved the parchment around in his hands.

"Any questions?"

They looked up. Harry shook his head until Draco asked "How often do we have to write this?", while casually waving the parchment.

"Until the ink runs out. I charmed your quills to stop working after a while. I hope this will make you remember the rules in the future and not repeat your wrong-doings." he said and watched how they reacted. Draco seemed to think about a way to bypass this tedious task but judging by his crunched up face, he did not yet come up with an idea. "Now, take your quills and parchments upstairs and come back down. It's nearly time for breakfast."

They shuffled away and Snape, exhaling in a sense of relief of having finished this talk, left for the kitchen where he prepared some hot water and food. Unusually large amounts of both. The table was set and Draco came back downstairs. He didn't say anything and filled his plate. Harry followed a few moments later. The kitchen was silent apart from the noises of cutlery on plates and the occasional putting down of a teacup on the table. Severus decided to let them mope for the moment and almost enjoyed the silence despite the tension in the air. He finished his light meal, flipped through the Daily Prophet and ignored the occasional nervous glances from either of the boys. When he was finished skimming, he folded the paper and put it aside. Clearing his throat, he received the boys's undivided attention immediately. "In the heat of yesterday's events I did not come around to mention that we will host a guest for the next few days. His coming here was also the reason for my preoccupation with work yesterday evening," he said. "I will therefore likely not be around much. That, of course, does not mean that you will roam freely here in this house. Somebody will look after you."

"Who?" Draco asked. He didn't need another intruder to his home, it was getting too crammed for his liking as it was. "You do not know them yet. They are old acquaintances of mine, friends now... of some sort," said Severus. He checked his watch. "And they should arrive any moment now."

Draco wondered who might be coming. His father used to have many visitors in his old home, most frequently noble pureblood wizard, but also dodgy characters at times. He specifically remembered one occasion in which his father made it clear he did not tolerate little brats wandering around, eavesdropping, when he had meetings with his acquaintances, after the boy had tried to pry on their meeting and listen to what they were talking about. He had dragged Draco from his hiding spot, scolded him soundly and thrown him in his room to wait for him until after the meeting. He still wore scars from the thrashing that followed.

The bell rang. "Finish your breakfast, boys," said Severus and went to open the door.

"Good morning, Severus!" said the man at their front door. "Welcome, welcome," said Severus with a slight bend of the head. "Come on in." He stepped aside to make room in their small hallway. "Where's Black?" "Oh," he hestitated, "have a guess! He'll be late… as always. I apologize on his behalf." Severus rolled his eyes and closed the door.

Harry and Draco had stayed in the kitchen, as they were told, but went right to the door to not miss a single look at their guests. The man took off his shoes and jacket and turned to Severus. He was just as tall and even skinnier than their guardian, and he looked tired and altogether beat up.

"Thank you again for doing this!" he said in the humblest way. "Absolutely, Remus! Now, I assume you want to meet…" Severus guided his gaze to the kitchen door where the boys were staring at them. The man's eyes spotted the familiar face. "Harry..." he said in nothing more but a whisper. The resemblance to his father was uncanny. Harry was visibly shocked. This stranger knew him, or his name at least. Shy as he was, he backed away.

"Draco, Harry" said Severus, "be polite and say hello to Remus Lupin." "Hello," they said almost in unisono. They stepped back to their places and sat down to finish breakfast. Remus sat down in Severus' place at the head of the table and Severus went over to the counter. "May I offer you some tea? Toast?" he asked. "Yes please," said Remus, leaving out the I'm starving. He turned to the boys and offered them a soft smile which was seconded by Harry but not Draco. From up close you could spot scars and scratches all over Remus's face. Some looked as if they had been added just recently or had barely been healed. "What happened to your face?" asked Draco. "Draco!" warned Snape. "It's okay," Lupin tried to appease Severus, and turned back to the boys. "I had a little accident two days ago. Severus is going to help me avoid such.. accidents.. in the future."

"Remus and I will be working on a specific potion, which is the reason I will be busy and working for most of this weekend," he addressed his charges while pouring Remus a cup of tea. "As this task will demand our utmost attention, I will expect you to stay upstairs and out of our way until further notice." He went to grab some toast to serve Remus. "Do we have an understanding?", he addressed the boys again. "Yessir," they answered. Remus started on his breakfast and held back any comments, almost feeling intimidated by Severus's strict tone. "Good. While Remus and I will be down in the laboratory, Sirius will watch over you. It goes without saying that I expect you to behave." While he said this, he thought Sirius would be the one who'd be in need of the same advice before being left on his own device. He poured himself the rest of the tea. "Now, if you're done with your breakfast, you can go outside and clean up the pile of rubble you created yesterday. Once you are finished, you will go straight upstairs and start with your lines. That should busy you for the time being. The sooner you start, the sooner it will be over."

Being grounded and punished was bad enough as it was, but did he have to rub it in like this, in front of the visitor of all things? Blushed as they were, they avoided the gaze from both adults but picked up on the cue. Harry took his plate to leave the table. Draco followed suit. They placed their dishes in the sink and went to leave the kitchen. Grabbing their shoes from the hallway, they went through the kitchen and entered the garden.

Once the boys were gone, Lupin smirked cheekily "Lines?" "Don't ask," said Severus, tea in hand, as the sat down where Draco sat before. "They seem quite well behaved, if you'd ask me." "They can be, that's for sure. But they had a little unattended adventure yesterday, sneaking off the grounds, lying, being out until dawn, roaming the woods." "I see… Lucky timing it was yesterday and not the night before," said Lupin, obviously worried. Severus acknowledged his comment with an approving hum. "But I didn't take you for the giving-lines-type-of-guy," teased Remus. "You'd be surprised about the amount of wrong assumptions and rumors prevailing around my person." Severus smirked and drank some tea. "I figured having them write out what to do and what not to do would reinforce their memory in the future. It certainly does not harm them, merely takes some of their precious time they'd otherwise spend getting themselves into the next episode of trouble. Besides, penmanship is trained, is it not?" he offered as an explanation and took a sip from his tea. "As is punctuality… What's keeping Black so long?" He glanced over to the door as if he was hoping to make time go faster this way. "He'll come. He's usually some twenty minutes late," said Remus and checked his watch, "so he should arrive quite soon." Remus took another bite from this toast and devoured every last crumb of it.

Somebody rapped on the door. Remus looked up from his plate, shot Snape a told-you! kind of glance by raising his eyebrows with a grin on his face. Severus went to open the door and let the tardy guest inside. "Trouble finding this place?" That was a snarky loaded question, but Sirius decided not to jump on the train.

"None at all. Thanks for the directions!" he said and patted Severus on the shoulder as he stepped inside the house. "Man, that smells good. Any chance there's some breakfast left for me? I didn't have any this morning, I just got up, really." Severus rolled his eyes, already feeling the start of a headache, closed the door and restored his posture. "Sure, come on in to the kitchen. Remus arrived a little while ago."

"Sirius!" said Remus and embraced his old friend into a tight hug, "Glad you finally made it."

"Yes, thank you for offering your help and looking after the boys for the time being," said Snape. Sirius had already snatched a piece of bread from Remus's plate. "Right, the little ones," he said, his mouth stuffed with toast, "Where are they anyway?" He casually leaned against the kitchen counter. "Outside at this moment. As a matter of fact, they are grounded, but since neither Remus nor I will have time to have an eye on them..." Sirius gulped down his toast and finished "...you thought I'd play the prison guard. Well thanks for the heads up."

"Sirius!" shot Remus sternly.

"...I thought you would keep them occupied and keep an eye on them," said Severus. "But I must assume my hopes are too high up when I expect you to keep them in line, but please, for once, try and be the adult in the room."

"What's that supposed to mean?!"

"Oh, come on, stop the banter!" said Remus. "Sirius, Severus is doing me a big favor, so please do as he wishes and cooperate here, alright?"

Black glared at his friend, huffed but gave in. "Alright!" said Sirius. "Is there anything for me to do around here?"

"Not right now, no. The boys are cleaning up the results of the mischief they found themselves in yesterday evening and I gave them something to work on later." In that moment, the door to the garden opened up again, and both boys appeared with slightly red cheeks and dirty hands. "We're done with the pile," announced Draco before he noticed Sirius. "Well done, boys," said Severus, "Before you head upstairs, I want you to meet Sirius. He will keep an eye on you. Try and stay out of trouble." The boys looked over to the other man they didn't know yet and said their hellos. Harry thought the man's hair was just as crazy and tangled as his own. And why did he, too, keep staring at him? "Hello boys," said Sirius, "Severus already told me you have got some work to do, but if you need anything, I'll be right here, okay?" He offered a smile and they nodded. Draco tugged on Harry's shirt to indicate they're leaving. "Yes, alright, we gotta go," he said to the men and went. There were too many people in this house for his liking.

Draco was already heading upstairs, but Harry stopped in the door frame. "See you later, Mr…. Lupin? It was nice meeting you." said Harry. "You can call me Remus, Harry," he said with a faint smile, which Harry seconded. He took another good glance at Sirius, the man with the wild hair, and left. The door closed with a soft click of the lock.

All three men watched them leave. Severus broke the silence. "Well then, I think you'll find something to occupy your mind. There are books in the living room, tea and food are in the shelves and water in the pipes. If you're ready", he addressed Remus, "I think we should head down to the laboratory and start?" Remus gave an agreeing nod of the head. "Thanks again, Severus." "Don't get your hopes up too high. Although my results so far looked promising it's uncertain whether the same will be true for you. The potion might not show an effect at all." "I am aware, but hope is all I have left." On this sad note, they left the kitchen and left Sirius behind. "And when did I become a bloody nanny?" he whispered into the kitchen for nobody to answer.

* * *

Hope you enjoyed this lil chapter! Here're some comment for engagement:

1\. **Thanks for reading this far!**

2\. I feel like the pace is slooowww, but I also don't want to skip far ahead too suddenly. Any opinion? Constructive comments are appreciated.

3\. Do you want to see more of Snape's POV? I tried to focus on the boys, but writing Severus might also be a nice change. Let me know! Next Chapter _might_ be exclusively Snape/Lupin.

3.1: An idea - Switching the POV for each chapter? Switching the POV entirely to one person (Draco, preferably, hence the Title of this fic)?

4\. Thanks for sticking around, you're the best!


	7. Chapter 7 - Wolf in the Lab

Ok ok, so so so sorry for posting _this_ infrequently, really! Thank you all so much for the response to the last chapter and please enjoy this one. I won't make any promises of a quick update, but I will not leave you guys and gals hanging here, as I myself hate finding unfinished stories that I like. So here is the next piece.

* * *

 **Chapter 7** Wolf in the Laboratory, Dog under the Roof

Remus followed Severus into the potions laboratory, where he was advised to take a seat. He watched Severus carefully prepare his potions. He always admired the man for his patience with this subject. While he waited, seated across from where Severus prepared a potion, he remembered that back when they were still in school, he often watched Severus in their shared (and dreaded!) Potions lessons. The Slytherin seemed to be a natural, but in retrospect, Remus remembered, he'd probably simply worked harder than anybody else in the class.

By now, more than a decade later, Severus was a renowned potions master and was known for his innovative style of brewing potions. One of his most acclaimed contribution to the world of potions was the development of a new brewing procedure, which shortened the time for brewing five of the most commonly used but incredibly complicated potions for medical use. His improved method cut the time nearly in half and increased the yield at the same time. Remus caught a glimpse at the short article about this in the Advances and Innovations section of the Daily Prophet. Although they had never been friends, he was always glad to read about people he went to school with and to see how they were faring after the chaos of war. He himself had lost many friends in battle and while he learnt to cope with loss, others never did and are still suffering today. Yet others took those turbulent times to restart their lives and come to senses with themselves. Remus knew that Severus belonged to the latter and eventually reached out to him.

As Severus had explained to him, much of his work and success in this field had to do with him scouring ancient scriptures and books from wizards and alchemists, often predating the first millenium. The knowledge of ancient runes was imperative to his work. Despite the fact that modern potioneers have a much better understanding of the features and effect of each ingredient, many old recipes yield astonishingly effective potions. It might be due to shear luck.

During his preparatory work for an entirely different project, scouring through one Alchemy book dating back to the eighth century, he came across a list of remedies against werewolves. He did not think twice about it and nearly skipped the page, but upon closer observation he noticed an ingredient that he hadn't come across in any other potion, something that was described as lithos solaris. He jotted down the name for later reference but dismissed it for the time being.

According to the scripture, the stone held the power of the sun inside itself. Following the logic of binary rules, in with the sun and moon held opposite energies, dictated that this sunstone would counter the moon's effect, including the night of a full moon, and shield the carrier from werewolf attacks.

Severus explained that he was never a believer in the healing powers of rocks and crystals and hence dismissed the possibility that this piece of information might become helpful in the future. However, after he read a handful of positive report on a similar matter, he rummaged through apothecaries all over England to get hold of specimens that might define as such sunstones. He also spoke to some of his colleagues what they knew much about the matter. Often he did not receive more than a suspicious or dubious glance. People knew his stance when it came to pseudo-brewing and wishful healing method, so his asking stroke many of them as rather out of the ordinary. Despite all this, he collected enough material to start extraction methods to concentrate the essence of the sun. As soon as he yielded enough of the essence, he contacted Remus and told him about his ideas and plans. Remus offered to subject himself for the experiment, not least in hope of ease or even healing of his furry problem.

"Here, take this," said Severus and Remus needed a while to recollect himself from this thoughts. Lupin took the goblet holding a golden liquid and smelled it. "Listen carefully," started Severus, "I want you to take a deep breath, take one sip from the potion. Not more than one sip!" Their eyes were fixed onto each other. "You will have to take two breaths, then take two sips. Go on at the same increment until the goblet is empty." "Alright. One breath, one sip, etcetera." "Exactly."

Remus took the first sip. He listened into himself to sense some effect.

"I don't feel anyth–" "Hush! Concentrate and drink up," said Severus. Remus felt like a scolded child but listened and counted his breaths. After the third sip, his eyes started turning more and more yellow, and gained a golden glow and his throat became hoarse. He coughed. "Drink up, it's almost done," said Snape as he saw his subject struggling. Once Remus gulped down the last drop of the potion, he fell back into his chair and wiped some sweat drops from his forehead. "I'm burning on the inside!" he said. "I'm afraid, it will get worse from here on," said Severus as he put away the empty jar. Snape returned and faced the other goblet with a bubbling potion inside.

"What does this potion do to me?" Lupin got up from his chair and started unbuttoning his shirt, pacing the room. "I hope you don't mind," he said, but continued without waiting for a response, "I'm burning, I have to cool down, what's happening, is this normal?" He was pacing like a caged animal.

"The potion I gave you is an aperio-type potion," Severus started to explain. "I adjusted it to reveal the wolf inside of you. The burning you feel is an indication that the first part my our experiment is working." Snape watched the pacing man-wolf.

"You revealed the wolf in me?! Have you lost your mind? What if I…"

"You will not transform, don't take me for a fool, I would not subject myself to such danger!" said Snape before Remus could even finish his thought. "What is happening to you now will probably become your most intense transformation, without transforming per se. If I am not mistaken, werewolves rarely remember their transformation processes, am I correct?" Remus coughed an approving yes. "I'm usually knocked out the day after and remember nothing but pain," he paused shortly, "but never this heat." His voice sounded dry. He hunched over and dropped his hands on the lab bench to catch himself.

Severus cast a worried glance at Remus. He was stirring the second potion one last time, filled another glass almost to its rim and went over to his subject. "This potion will react with the wolf inside you. It contains the essence of lithos solaris, which will bind to your wolf and tame it. If all goes well, that is. I would lie if I told you it will relieve you from the heat you feel right now, it may indeed get worse, but you have to follow through or the chance of our experiment having any effect equals precisely zero."

With two heavy coughs and huffs, Remus straightened himself, wiped the sweat from his face and took the potion. His now angry, flaring eyes looked into Severus's as he took the first gulp. The effect showed immediately, he screwed up his eyes and grit his teeth. "Keep going, Remus!" said Severus as he stepped closer. He held the wolf by his shoulders and guided the potion back to the mouth. "Only a few more sips and you are done!"

"I can't, Severus, it's too much, I'm burning! One more drop and I might explode!" said Remus. He pushed away Snape's hand holding the potion. "You have to go on or you are wasting my time here," said Severus. Remus grunted aggressively and his eyes, now bright golden, were shooting an evil look at Severus's face. He took the jar, downed its contents and let out a loud roar. The glass crashed to the floor and, with a thud, so did Remus.

Severus conjured a blanket and dragged Remus onto it. Although he was not the one who had to endure the stress and strain of the potion, he was exhausted nonetheless. He went to leave the laboratory for a refreshment and a short break from the experiment. Some air would also calm his nerves.

When he opened the door to his study, he looked into one petrified face and almost stumbled upon another particular blonde boy. He pulled him by the arm and stood him up in front of him. "What do you think you're doing here? Were you listening on the door?" asked Snape but he did not wait for a response. Instead, he walked over to the couch, where he found Sirius, sound asleep, one arm resting on his eyes, the other hanging from the side of the couch, a magazine laying on the floor underneath. "And you," barked Severus, as he shot a stinging hex at the ruffian, who woke instantly, "is this what you call keeping an eye on the boys?!"

Sirius was rubbing his neck, obviously confused about his whereabouts. He looked around the room, saw a livid bat in front of him, a curious Draco near the door and Harry, worried, not far from there either. "Oh, hey, what? What's going on? How's Remus?"

"That's not important right now. What's important is: Why did you let the boys get so close to the study and to the lab? You had ONE job, Sirius, to keep an eye on Draco and Harry!"

"They were upstairs, I was just resting here for a little while until you came and shot hexes around! Seriously, if anything, you are a danger to everybody in this house", but Snape did not let him finish, instead he turned around to face Draco and Harry. "Why are you not upstairs?"

"We are bo–…" started Draco, "we wanted to see what's going on here." "That is none of your concern! I told you before and I will not repeat myself: Do not disturb our work, mind your own business and stay upstairs. Any interruption could be devastating to the whole experiment! Now go!" said Snape and pointed to the staircase. "Where is Remus?" asked Harry, apparently concerned, "Is he okay?" Severus was reluctant to reply, huffed and went to the kitchen for some water. Sirius, finally awake and sharp, got off the couch and followed him. "What did you do to Remus?" he asked. He made for the lab door, but Severus stopped him from entering. "What did you do to my friend, Snape? Let me inside! I have to see him!" Harry and Draco were rushing out of the room, feeling the uprising tension between the men. They stopped halfway up to their room and watched the scene unfold.

"Stop it, Black! You can't help him right now!" said Severus. With his tall stature and his wide shoulders Sirius did not stand a chance to pass by him. "If you want to help him, turn around and take care of everything else that's going on in this house, that is not behind this door."

"What. Did. You. Do. To. Remus?" Sirius asked again, trying to push Severus aside. He succeeded, to some extent, and spotted Remus lying on the floor.

"Get away from the door, Black!" insisted Severus and he dragged him back into the living room and closed the door behind him. "He's passed out and he will be for a while longer!"

"I swear, I will kill you if–"

"If what? He volunteered as a subject to this–" he started to explain when he spotted four big eyes and two gaping mouths pointing in his direction. "Get to your room and stay there!" he barked more harshly than he had intended, and the boys jumped and ran up the rest of the stairs.

Back in their room, both Harry and Draco were still in shock about what they had just witnessed. They closed the door shut but sat down right next to it, panting. Severus said Remus was knocked out and it sounded as if he was hurt or injured as far as they could tell. The argument downstairs did not cease but they only heard muffled voices and it was impossible for them to understand a word of what was said. "Do you think Remus will die?" Harry asked. Draco looked at him, obviously worried, too, then shook his head. "I don't think so. Uncle Severus is a Potions Master, he's never harmed anybody, he's there to heal people," he said. "What should we do? We can't hear anything they say downstairs but we can't go down either," said Harry. Draco shrugged. He got back on his feet and started walking around their room for a little while, trying to think of a plan to sneak back down. Harry kept pushing his ear against the door, trying to understand any of the words spoken in the floor beneath them. "They stopped talking," he said to Draco, then kept listening. "I think someone's coming upstairs!" Harry rushed back to his desk where his lines were still laying as he left them earlier to sneak downstairs with Draco. "Pretend you were writing, or else we'll look suspicious! Quick!" he whispered to Draco, who, to his surprise, listened and followed his advice.

There was a quick knock on the door but it was opened before either of the boys could make a response. It was Sirius. The shaggy haired man walked into the room and grinned at both boys. "Looks like I'm grounded now, too," he said with a cheeky grin on his face. Harry and Draco giggled. "Why? You're old, you can't get grounded," said Draco. "Thanks for the pointer," said Sirius. "What I meant was, I will stay here for now, so that your dear guardian cannot complain I wouldn' watch you, alright?" Draco and Harry looked at each other and shrugged. "Sure," said Draco. Sirius had a look around the room, then took a seat on Harry's bed.

"Ah, that's cozy," he said, "Let me just rest my eyes for a minute or two. You don't mind do ya?" They both shook their heads and in no time, he resumed his morning slumber. Draco whispered "Is he really asleep again?" Harry leaned over from his desk, checked Sirius's face, shrugged and said "I think so, yeah." "How can somebody be so lazy and sleep all day when he could do whatever he wants?! Grown-ups are weird," said Draco and shook his head. "Should we wake him up?" he added. "No, never!" said Harry in an alarming tone. "I think we should just let him rest there and go on with our lines. How far are you?" asked Harry. "I've got one page, but the ink is not getting any thinner." Draco wailed and said, "I've filled almost a page. Stupid lines!" With an almost synchronous huff of resignation they turned to their papers and continued scribbling their letters. Only the occasional snort from Sirius disrupted the sound of quills scratching on paper.

It didn't take long that Draco has had enough. "This is stupid, we're gonna sit here all day!" he complained while giving his hand a good shake. "What are you going to do about it?" asked Harry. "Dunno. I'm taking a break," he said, putting his quill down. "And how come he's still asleep? Isn't he supposed to watch us? If he's not doing his job, why should we?" he said and folded his face into a frown. After a moment, his expression changed into a smile. "I have an idea," he said. "And that is?" asked Harry, but he did not get an answer. Draco, in the meantime, looked for something in one of his desk drawers. "Here, watch me" he said and pulled out a thick black marker. He sneaked over to Sirius and wrote on the man's forehead. "Stop it, Draco, he's gonna wake up!" warned Harry, but he was wrong. Only a snorting sound and a grunt came from the sleeping Sirius, who merely brushed away his hair and stayed asleep. Harry gaped when he saw, what was written on the forehead and covered his wide open mouth with his hands. "Oh Draco, if Severus finds out, you're in trouble!" "He deserves it!" said Draco, smirked and put the marker back into his drawer. "Let's get some snacks, all this writing is making me hungry!"

Harry watched Draco leave the room, glanced over at Sirius and was indecisive whether to follow or not. He had to grin, though, he's never played a prank on anybody, less an adult! "Are you coming or what?" asked Draco, and Harry, somewhat reluctantly, slid off his chair and marched downstairs. In the kitchen, Draco was standing on a chair and reaching for a big jug on the top shelf. He could barely reach it, but once he got hold of it, he handed it down to Harry. "I know that Uncle Severus hides all the candy in here, and he thinks I don't know about it," explained Draco, "but I do!" Harry examined the content of the jar. "That's brilliant! Can I have one, too?" Draco grabbed a handful of candy and handed it over to Harry. "Here, you can have it. We can't eat too much though, or it will be obvious we took some." He then took an even bigger portion than the one he handed to Harry and stored it in his pocket. Suddenly, movement and shuffling sounds came from upstairs. "Draco, I think he finally woke up!" said Harry. With a quick movement, Draco placed the jar back to where it was and hopped off the chair. "Oi boys," said Sirius, entering the kitchen, "you can't just run off like that!" Both boys started to smile and giggle when he said that. "Why are you laughing? This is not a laughing matter for me!" asked Sirius, making the boys chuckle even more. "Snape'd have my head if I'd lost you," glancing at the boys, "But nevermind that, are you hungry?" Both boys started to snigger, which gave Sirius a puzzled expression. "What's so funny? I asked you a question." he said. "Nothing," said Draco. "I could eat." added Harry.

It was nearing lunch time and Severus came back from the lab and smelled what was cooking, hoping that Black had taken into account that there were more than 3 stomachs to fill. Harry and Draco were sitting at the kitchen table, watching Sirius throw together what he called meal for lil pups, but what was really just vegetable soup with toast on the side. Here and there they munched on some of the candy and snapped the rolled up wrapping paper at each other's side. Whenever Sirius turned around to engage in conversation, Draco started to grunt and snigger again and Harry tried hiding his grin behind his hands. This was more fun than he'd thought it would. However, his grin quickly changed into his neutral expression when Severus returned to the kitchen. "I see you remembered to be an adult and take some responsibility," he said. "What are you cooking, Black?" Ignoring the snide comment, he replied, "Just some soup. You hungry, too?" then turned around.

Draco couldn't suppress a final grunt of amusement. "I hoped you… uhm, Black?" said Severus. "What?" "Well, you might want to check a mirror." With a questioning look on his face, Sirius left the kitchen. Draco bit his lower lip so he'd not burst out laughing. Facing the boys, Severus asked them sternly, "Did you think this was funny?", alternating his view from Draco to Harry and back. Harry looked guilty and shook his head but then quickly added "It was Draco's idea!", trying to demonstrate his innocence. "I see. Draco, is that so?" he addressed his godson but didn't need an answer, for the amount of giggling was truly sufficient as evidence. "I don't see why it's so bad! All he does is sleep. If you'd ask me, he's a big fat lazy-"

"BUM?" was Sirius somewhat upset reply from the hallway, as he entered the kitchen.

"Nobody was asking you, Draco," said Severus, "and I want you to apologize to him."

Draco was casting an angry glance from Severus to Sirius, who was scrubbing his face with a wet cloth. "Now," said his Godfather.

"No!" said Draco loudly and crossed his arms in front of him. "Alright, then find yourself a corner and we try again later, when you calmed yourself down," offered Severus. Draco thought about it for a moment but saw that he was in a tricky situation. He didn't do anything wrong, just stated the obvious. Huffing, he got off his chair and stomped to the living room. Harry was also visibly distressed, his ears and cheeks taking color. He couldn't stand the recurring tensions between Draco and Severus and felt increasingly uncomfortable despite not being fully involved in the disputes.

Like Harry, Sirius watched the scene and tried to ease the tension a little bit. He hadn't been too offended by the prank. "He's got quite a temper, that boy," said Sirius and continued stirring. "A temper? He wrote B-U-M all over your forehead and you're not even expecting an apology? Do you have any self-respect, Black?" asked Severus. "Honestly, let it be. I pulled far worse pranks by his age-" he said as he scooped a meal onto Harry's plate. "Which only goes to show that I have to intervene, lest he end up like a marauder," said Snape in his determined manner and ended the conversation. Shaking his head, Sirius also served himself and Severus. "Should we wait for him or how long you are going to have him stand there?" he asked, while casting a glance into the adjoining living room. "No, let's start eating, he will have to calm down first anyway," said Severus and started eating. Harry was nibbling on his toast, dipped it into the soup and slurped the soaked bread into his mouth. "Use your spoon, Harry," admonished Snape, still agitated from his aberrant godson. "Yessir, sorry," answered Harry meekly, blushed slightly and grabbed his spoon.

"How is Remus doing?" asked Sirius. "Sleeping. And he will be for at least another hour." He expected the potion to knock out a full blown werewolf, so one could only estimate how effective it would be for a non-transformed one. "But so far, the experiment goes well. Stage two will start tonight, but until then all we can do is wait for him to wake up." Harry still did not know what exactly Severus and Remus were doing but Remus was obviously some sort of lab-bunny today and Harry wondered why anybody would volunteer for such a job.

Meanwhile, Draco was in the living room, thinking about the past half hour and how quickly it had turned from fun to… well… this. Why was it always him to got punished? All he did was play a little prank on Sirius, and he really just stated the obvious with the word on his head. What was the big deal? His stomach started to grumble and hearing the cutlery clatter in the kitchen where the others were eating didn't help. When would he be allowed out again? Should he wait for Severus to call him or could he just leave? He decided he didn't care. The worst Severus would do was send him back to the corner, so he tried his luck and went to the kitchen.

"Uhm… Can… Can I also eat now, please?" he asked calmly. Severus put down his spoon and turned around to face his ward. "Aren't you forgetting something?" he inquired. Sirius stopped eating, sat up and shifted his eyes from Severus to the blond boy. Draco took a deep breath and apologized. "What for," asked his godfather. Sirius wanted to interrupt and accept the apology, but Snape silenced him with a hand motion. "I'm sorry for writing a bad word on your head." Draco finally said. "Apology accepted," said Sirius and made a gesture for Draco to take a seat next to Harry, who smiled at Draco when he sat down. Severus shortly shook his head but let the episode go.

Severus finished his meal and had to go back into his lab. "Alright boys, I have to get back to Remus now. Once you are finished with your meal, I want you to head back upstairs and start the second part of your punishment. I don't want to hear from any more insolence today, am I understood?" The boys nodded their heads. "Good! You are free to your own demand once you have finished the work, but I advice you not to rush it and remember that you are to stay on the premises, lest you want an extension of your grounding. I hope I can trust you to keep them in check this afternoon," he ended and looked over to Sirius. "Yeah yeah, we will manage, alright? Take care of Remus and stop pestering us with your lectures, alright?" Severus narrowed his eyes and looked at Black for a little while longer. Sirius countered the gaze with the same resilience, then Severus shook his head and left the kitchen. "Behave!" he addressed Draco and Harry on his way to the lab. "Does he always have to have such a stick up his–" started Sirius before he remembered who was left in the room.


End file.
